On the evening of Friday, October 13, the director of Al Awda Hospital in Tal al-Zaatar, in the north of the Gaza Strip, received a call from the Israeli army giving him two hours to evacuate his staff and patients. "I refused," said Dr. Mohana Ahmed, contacted by telephone – the Palestinian enclave has been cut off from the world since October 7. "We're still here, we're working, we're treating our patients, we're not moving."
All the hospitals in this area are under threat: On Friday, the Israelis ordered the evacuation of some 1.1 million inhabitants from the northern Gaza Strip, including densely populated Gaza City, to the center and south of the enclave.
"We're in an area where there's intense bombing, and the hospital has suffered damage in several places, fortunately not too extensive," explained Dr. Ahmed. His own family has left, scattered further south, and he barely has time to check up on them. "In eight days, I've slept 10 hours, maybe 12. I'm running from patient to patient, under stress and bombs," he said.
Over the past week, his hospital has received more than 500 patients, whom the doctors have treated with the means at hand. Staff and medicines, even simple painkillers and disposable needles, are in short supply. The Gazan health system, made dysfunctional by over 16 years of Israeli blockade, has now collapsed. There will soon be no electricity, as nothing has been coming into the Gaza Strip since October 8, not even the fuel needed to run the generators.
"An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes," said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the UNRWA, the UN refugee agency, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of displaced persons it is no longer able to accommodate. "Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity."
So far, humanitarian convoys attempting to enter via Rafah, the crossing point from Egypt and under fire from Israeli bombs, have had to turn back. An agreement seemed to have been reached to guarantee its opening on Monday morning, to deliver aid and evacuate foreigners trapped in the enclave. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, this would mainly include water and medicines but no fuel, which is essential for running hospital generators. "We need to bring in a massive amount of humanitarian aid, hygiene kits, shelters, etc," explained Guillemette Thomas, medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders France, which has teams in two hospitals in the area.
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