Photo: Eyad Baba Agence France-Presse “Most people [are afraid of] the fate of other hospitals,” says Khalil al-Daqran, spokesman for Hamas’s health ministry in Gaza, referring to facilities hit by fighting or simply stormed by Israel.
Agence France-Presse in Deir al-Balah, Palestinian Territories
Published at 11:07 Updated at 12:46
- Middle East
They push wheelchairs, hospital beds, or carry wounded relatives in their arms: the Israeli evacuation order for the area came down on Sunday and the largest hospital in the center of the war-torn Gaza Strip immediately began to empty.
“To all residents and displaced people in block 128, the Israeli army will act with force against Hamas and terrorist groups […], evacuate immediately,” insistently state the messages spread by SMS and on social networks.
But at the heart of block 128, on the map distributed by the Israeli army, is the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, one of the last 16 hospitals still operational (and “partially” only, according to the UN) in the Gaza Strip, which has been bombarded by Israel since the deadly Hamas attack on its soil on October 7.
The UN has for its part been forced to interrupt its humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip because of the evacuation order, according to a senior official.
“This morning, I spoke with my security adviser on the ground and I asked him: 'are there any operations this morning? ?', he said 'no, impossible',” the senior official said under cover of anonymity.
“It is not a decision to stop operations, but practically speaking, we can no longer operate,” he stressed.
Asked by AFP about this umpteenth evacuation order, the Israeli army declared that it had “informed” “those responsible for the Palestinian health system and the international community that they do not need to evacuate hospitals and medical infrastructure in the area.”
Clearly, the message did not get through, or if it did get through, it was not understood. Or the Gazans do not give him any credit: the flight of patients continues on Monday, leaving corridors, wards and rooms empty.
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Tamam al-Rai, carried on her bed on wheels by her family, cannot move after her “war injury.”
Medics “resist”
“I have a fracture and I had to have an amputation. We were told to “evacuate,” but where are we going to go? ? Where are we going to get treatment? ?” laments this grandmother, who has managed to pile on her bed a few blankets, a fan — useless in a territory without electricity — and bottles of water.
All around her, families are trying to make their way. The richest ones pay for a donkey and its cart to move their belongings. There, two men advance, each carrying a little girl with legs or arms in plaster. Here, another carries a teenager whose legs are paralyzed, a bag of serum still stuck intravenously in the wounded youth’s hand.
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Photo: Eyad Baba Agence France-Presse
The Hamas government’s health ministry for Gaza says it is concerned about the fate of “100 patients still in the hospital, including seven in intensive care.”
The ministry said the hospital was “still functioning,” but people, and even “some medical teams, panicked after learning that the surrounding areas were military zones of operation,” Khalil said. al-Daqran, spokesman for the ministry.
“Most people [fear] the fate of other hospitals,” he says, referring to facilities hit by the fighting or simply taken over by the Israeli army, which continues to accuse Hamas fighters, or other armed groups, of using hospitals as bases to shelter or launch attacks, something the Palestinian Islamist movement denies.
Iyad al-Jabri, director of this hospital which had about 200 beds before the war and has always been the only general hospital in the center of the Gaza Strip, assures that his teams are “resisting.”
“We are staying, we will continue to treat the patients and the wounded,” who are increasingly numerous in the area, now that the fighting is concentrated around Deir al-Balah.
Here as elsewhere, since October, hospitals have had to deal with permanent shortages of electricity, fuel, water, medicines and medical equipment.
“Where are we going to go now?”
In August, the evacuation orders of “blocs” defined by the Israeli army have already forced, according to the UN, 250,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to leave, or 12% of the population. In the small, devastated territory are crammed 2.4 million Palestinians, almost all displaced and threatened by various epidemics after the resurgence of polio.
But it is not this disease that first worries the families of displaced people who were crammed into the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Photo: Eyad Baba Agence France-Presse
Everyone has in mind the Israeli assault on al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza, now reduced to an “empty shell” strewn with human remains, according to the WHO.
Maha al-Sarsak and his family are therefore preparing to hit the road again.
Nine months ago, they left their home in Shujaiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Gaza.
“First we went to Rafah [far south], then they told us to leave. We went to Khan Younis [a little further north], they told us to leave. We came to Deir al-Balah and once again, we have to leave,” the girl confides.
“We've had enough! Where are we going to go now?”
Negotiations still ongoing in Cairo
Washington — A White House spokesman reported “progress” in talks on a Gaza truce Monday, despite the attack Sunday by Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Israel. “The working groups are meeting and talking, so there is still progress, and our team on the ground continues to say that the discussions are constructive,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council. The rocket and drone attack by the Lebanese group over the weekend “has not impacted the work on the ground,” he said, referring to negotiations taking place in Cairo, Egypt. A new round of talks on a Gaza truce, including the release of hostages held in the Palestinian territory, began Thursday in the Egyptian capital, with Israeli intelligence chiefs, CIA Director William Burns and the heads of Egyptian and Qatari intelligence in attendance. “We expect these discussions […] to continue for at least the next few days,” John Kirby said.
Agence France-Presse