As of Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has attacked 162 healthcare services in Gaza and rendered 114 hospitals and clinics inoperable. Within the midst of hunger by siege, each day bombardment, and threats to their lives, Gaza’s remaining healthcare staff proceed to look after the sick and wounded. The Actual Information studies from Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital and Al-Ahli Arab Hospital within the Gaza Strip.
Producer: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt
Videographer: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi
Video Editor: Leo Erhardt
Transcript
Rula Khaled Khalil Awadh – Nurse, Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital:
My brother was killed whereas I used to be at work. They known as me and mentioned, “Admit your brother, he has been killed.”
Narrator:
Rula Khaled Khalil Awadh is a nurse on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Southern Gaza. She was on shift when her brother’s physique was introduced into the hospital after he was killed in an Israeli strike.
Rula Khaled Khalil Awadh – Nurse, Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital:
That is Mohamed, my brother, the martyr, who died after I was on shift. He was martyred and left this world. The occupation took him, towards our needs. He has two sons and a lady: Firas, Khaled, and Ruweida. Ruweida is called after our mom, God relaxation her soul. He grew up an orphan from an early age. Now he’s left behind three kids—orphans.
I received’t mislead you, from day one, we had been witnessing what number of docs, nurses, and medical employees had misplaced their members of the family whereas they had been at work. So we put the situation in our minds: How would I face this example? Then we’d say, “No, God forbid!” However then it occurred. He has no connection to something. He went to cut wooden as a result of there isn’t any gasoline. Whereas he was chopping wooden, he was hit by a drone. That is throughout his funeral. That is throughout my assembly with him. The expertise of loss. We’re experiencing loss day by day.
Narrator:
Dr. Ahmed Radi is a health care provider volunteering on the Al-Ahli hospital in besieged Northern Gaza. It was right here, on the seventeenth of October 2023, {that a} missile struck the courtyard of the Al-Ahli hospital killing 471 individuals and wounding 342 others.
Since then, Israeli air strikes have pummelled Gaza’s medical infrastructure, making life extremely tough for docs like Ahmed
Dr. Ahmed Radi – Volunteer Physician, Al Ahli Hospital:
The expertise of loss, I imply: Moms dropping their sons. Kids dropping their moms. Individuals dropping kids, dropping the aged. These experiences have been tough, not simply as a health care provider however as a human being. We haven’t discovered the time for grief or disappointment, for expressing our emotions, as a result of occasions are persevering with, the genocide is continuous, the distress is continuous in Gaza. The conflict has eradicated all points of life for us, particularly this conflict, the likes of which we have now by no means seen. This has been a conflict of annihilation from each angle. It’s affected us psychologically, it’s affected us bodily.
With reference to displacement, after all, there’s nobody, particularly in northern Gaza, who hasn’t been displaced a number of instances in mild of the persevering with navy operations by the occupation forces. We’ve suffered from displacement; we’ve been compelled into uninhabitable areas, unfit for all times.
Narrator:
The North of Gaza has been beneath full siege since October 1st 2024, with tens of 1000’s of individuals trapped with out entry to meals and water. Israeli forces have been utilizing navy autos, drones and sand boundaries to cease any motion of individuals, items and support. It’s beneath these situations the employees on the AL-Ahli hospital are compelled to operate.
Dr. Ahmed Radi – Volunteer Physician, Al Ahli Hospital:
It is a small hospital; it will probably’t accommodate these giant numbers. The rooms are full of sufferers; the corridors are full of sufferers. That is the most important, most tough problem for protecting on high of the sufferers.
Rula Khaled Khalil Awadh – Nurse, Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital:
– Hiya. How are you? How is Heba? Is she doing OK? When did Heba arrive? – Two days in the past.
– What occurred to Heba?
– Our faculty was bombed, ‘The Martyrs Faculty’ in Nuseirat. The classroom that was subsequent to us, she was standing on the door when it was bombed.
– She was in the course of the strike?
– Sure, in the course of it.
– OK. What occurred to her precisely, together with her head, what’s the scenario? – It’s all open from right here to right here; they did a CT scan. There’s a piercing to the skull, inner bleeding, and we’re protecting observe, with God’s will.
– Did they alter the bandage? She’s taken her medicine?
– She’s taken her medicine.
– OK, is she all the time crying like this?
– She’s quiet, then cries, quiet, then cries.
– That is from the concern, the results of the hit, she’s scared.
– Sure, at evening she freezes.
– It’s not like firstly, although. She’s scared, nevertheless it’s much less. Thanks be to God. – OK, however attempt as a lot as you may to feed her, so her immune system strengthens, in order that additionally the stitches will shut up sooner.
The issue, after all, is that there isn’t a meals accessible. Nothing is obtainable. OK, attempt, for instance, milk: issues like this. There are nutritional vitamins, the physician—you may be prescribed it. We acquired a toddler; she was one and a half years outdated, id unknown. She was fully burnt. Two hours later, whereas they had been treating her, the scenario deteriorated from issues introduced on by the conflict, from inhalation of the chemical substances launched by the missiles. The kid suffered from issues, and we transferred her to intensive care. Two hours later, the kid died, and he or she was unidentified.
A few of the injured, it’s as if in case you have opened a diagram that exhibits, individually: the pores and skin, the muscle mass, the flesh, the bone. Proven in a transparent image, within the wounds of the sufferers and the injured.
Painkillers, absolutely the fundamental medicine required for the injured, just isn’t accessible within the hospital. Paracetamol just isn’t accessible—or solely in tiny quantities.
Dr. Ahmed Radi – Volunteer Physician, Al Ahli Hospital:
The killer on this conflict is the silence. In mild of the genocide, in mild of the mass killings, and the mass burnings, we haven’t discovered a single person who’s stood and mentioned: “Cease the conflict on Gaza!” The place is the world?
[Explosions] I might describe myself as a standard Palestinian citizen who’s affected by this conflict and its woes, whose home was destroyed, who was displaced. However we have now no alternative however to remain in our houses in northern Gaza. The chopping off of the evacuation routes, the destruction of each doable evacuation path to evacuate the Palestinian individuals. The medical employees have been exhausted, and strain has been utilized on them; some had been arrested, some had been killed. However the resolution has been to stay within the Gaza Strip, to stay particularly within the north of the Gaza Strip.
We’ll observe by with what we had been born to do, and we pray that God ends this conflict and ends this genocide and returns peace to this lovely metropolis.
Rula Khaled Khalil Awadh – Nurse, Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital:
– Hello Bashoura. How are you? How’s issues? Good? The place’s your needle? You’re taking part in with the ball? How? You’re squeezing it? Good. Does it damage? No? OK, nice. In a short time, we’re going to change it for you. Can I see your head wound? What’s its standing? Are you getting complications, Bashayir? No ache? Nothing. Good. OK, let me simply seize this and see to your injection. Is there any ache?
– [Silently] A bit.
– Good.
A flood. I describe this conflict as actually a flood. The title matches. They known as it a flood, and it’s, in actual fact, a flood. We was in a state of independence, stability, and security. Now we’re in a state of concern, nervousness, displacement, and loss. That is the conflict, summed up—a flood. We’ll develop in resilience and power and extra giving, God prepared. We’re a mighty individuals; we’ll stay a mighty individuals. God prepared.