Where aid can enter Gaza, we know about it
The American War and Middle East: The Rafah hospital — “Sad, but we’re not going to leave,” said a burn nurse
“[A ceasefire]s will enable us to finish our mission, enable new help to come in, new supplies to come in, and eventually enable our safe return home,” she said.
Everyone was desperate for a cease-fire. Israel says it needs to eliminate Hamas’s military capability in order to reject a sustained ceasefire.
He asked, “So you see how sad this is?” This patient is older than 60 years old. We will not do this in the U.S. as you know, but this time of war and lack of resources that we are forced to do this.”
At the Rafah hospital on Thursday, Monica Johnston, a burn nurse from Portland, Ore., was back at the ICU, only partially recovered from a gastrointestinal infection that left her dehydrated, dizzy and nauseous.
“Every day that that crossing is not available and usable for humanitarian assistance, there’s going to be more suffering, and that’s of deep concern to us,” he told reporters. “And so once again, we urge the Israelis to open up that crossing to humanitarian assistance immediately, that aid is desperately needed.”
The US wants the only crossing that handles large numbers of fuel trucks to open immediately, according to the White House national security spokesman.
The Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza had been allowed by Israel since the first day of the U.N.’s humanitarian operations
The head of the U.N.’s relief operations, Andrea De Domenico, told the French press agency AFP that amount of fuel was needed each day to maintain operations.
The Israeli military on Friday in an apparent response to the concerns said it had transferred more than 52,000 gallons of fuel to be made available to international organizations in Gaza through Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza.
“The whole aid operation runs on fuel,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. Light can’t be kept on in hospitals and vehicles can’t distribute aid. If the aid operation collapses because of fuel cutoff, it will collapse quickly.
On Wednesday, Israel claimed that it had reopened the crossing, but the United Nations and others disagreed, because no trucks were allowed through. On Friday afternoon, Israel allowed at least 157,000 liters of fuel to enter, according to Scott Anderson, a senior official at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinians. Food and medical supplies have not entered since Sunday.
International aid and medical workers who were either in Rafah or who had recently left, warned at a press briefing this week that the damage to Gaza infrastructure, lack of clean water, ongoing attacks and increasing starvation had brought humanitarian operations to the brink of collapse.
A U.S. physician’s experience with the Rafa hospital: “I had to see a better health crisis before I left,” npr told NPR
The surgeon explained to the doctor that they couldn’t fit up the hole in the patient’s heart. He made a video on Friday about his conversation with Shah, and is also the vice president of the Syrian American Medical Society.
Two U.S.-trained doctors are part of a group who just arrived in Rafah to take part in a medical mission. Now, nearing the end of the mission, with Israel closing the main border crossing, they are unable to leave.
Shah relates in a voice how the jaw of one of the patients crumbled when he touched him while wearing blue scrubs. He closes his eyes briefly as he describes the story but in the only visible sign of distress, hemassages his temple.
Ghanem says conditions have worsened considerably since the border closure on May 7, with many of the local physicians and nurses unable to come to work because they have had to evacuate their families.
“Unfortunately here I have to prioritize patient lives. I know about the term ‘prioritizing patient lives’. “I never used it before I came here,” he said in the interview, that was conducted by video call from Rafah.
In one of the two videos NPR received from the hospital, Ghanem tells how difficult the case of an 18-year old woman with a skull fracture was for his colleague. He said they did not have drugs strong enough to keep her sedated.
Source: U.S. medical volunteers in Rafah hospital say they’ve never seen a worse health crisis
The Emergency Medical Response to the Gaza Conflict: Israel’s Implications for Aid, Aid, Coordination and the Relief of Gaza’s Children and Families
He said they stopped treatment for a woman suffering from acute pancreatitis after two days because she required continued oxygen that might support several other patients.
Ghanem, who did not want the hospital identified for security reasons, estimated that two to three patients a day die in the intensive care unit because of lack of supplies or equipment.
Part of the problem is that items critical for hospitals are banned by Israel which says they can be used by Hamas for military purposes. The list of items it considers dual-use include some water disinfection materials.
The list does not cover all banned items. Save the Children has said it has had shipments rejected by Israel because they contained sleeping bags with zippers. A list of items that have been rejected has been compiled by Geisha, an Israeli legal center.
After the killing of seven workers in Gaza from the U.S.-based World Central Kitchen last month, Israel, under U.S. pressure, pledged to allow in more aid, improve coordination and to safeguard humanitarian staff.
A statement issued this week by seven major international aid organizations, including Save the Children and Care, said those pledges have not been fulfilled.
The humanitarian actors see no improvement from Israeli authorities when it comes to the plight of the 2.3 million people in Gaza.
Israel has issued evacuation orders to sectors of Rafah, where more than 1.3 million people are crammed in near the Egyptian border. But for many there is no where to go.
Families are pitching tents on the sidewalks and in the graveyards, according to a Gaza based communications officer. She said that the others had moved to the beach with no clean water or sanitary conditions.
Oxford professor Dr. Nick Maynard, a surgeon from England who traveled to Gaza three times on medical missions since the start of the war, said most of his time over Christmas was spent operating on major explosive injuries to the chest and abdomen. He said on his last trip this month that complications due to malnutrition in trauma cases had increased.
He said that he operated on many patients in the last two weeks, who had terrible side effects from their abdominal surgery, and particularly those with the abdominal wall breaking down. “Literally their intestines end up hanging outside.”
Maynard said two of his patients, girls age 16 and 18, had survivable injuries but died last week as a direct result of malnutrition contributing to their deaths.
“We’re at a tipping point right now,” said Dr. John Kahler, co-founder of MedGlobal, a U.S.-based medical aid organization. The children of Palestinian origin were only getting about 80% of the calories they needed before the war began. The effects of deprivation are showing seven months into the war.
“It’s at that time that the immunological system begins to break down,” he said. “It’s at that time where infections and complications of malnutrition will start.”
A Warning Note on the Kerem Shalom Emergency Relief Program (Extended Version) at the Council of Ministers for Environment and Natural Resources (JUNOS)
According to several Western and Israeli officials, Egypt resists sending aid to Kerem Shalom because of its importance in facilitating aid collection and delivery.
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The Israeli military on Friday announced it has transferred more than 52,000 gallons of fuel to international organisations in Gaza through Kerem Shalom crossing. International aid and medical workers who were either in Rafah or who had recently left said the damage to Gaza infrastructure, lack of clean water, ongoing attacks and increasing starvation had brought humanitarian operations to the brink of collapse.