Gaza- On a rickety bed and under a roof collapsing from the horror of the explosions, the seventy-year-old patient, Nizar Abu Al-Moaza, sits, exhausted by illness and hunger. There is no medicine or food in the besieged Indonesian hospital in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, which is still being subjected to bombing, which resulted in the injury of a nurse today, Monday. The occupation army demands that the hospital staff evacuate completely, in conjunction with a similar siege and threat to Al Awda Hospital.
Abu Al-Moaza was among the few who were not arrested by the Israeli occupation forces, and forced to flee to the Indonesian hospital, following the storming of the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital in the same town, which – like the Jabalia camp and the rest of the towns of the northern Gaza Strip governorate – has been subjected to a fierce ground military operation since October 5. Last October.
Abu Al-Muazza and his fellow patients endured their pain until they reached the Indonesian hospital, which, according to the Ministry of Health, was the first of the hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip to go out of service at the beginning of the ground operation.
The Ministry of Health says that 3 government hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip went out of service in succession, namely “The Indonesian” and “Beit Hanoun”, the last of which was Kamal Adwan, which suffered massive destruction and was set on fire by the occupation forces, who arrested about 240 people from it, most notably its director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya. .
As for Abu Al-Muazza and those with him, they are living, as he described it, “terrifying days” inside the Indonesian area, surrounded by tanks, and warplanes and drones do not leave the airspace of the hospital, amid non-stop air and artillery bombardment, coinciding with bulldozing operations and setting fire to homes and buildings adjacent to the hospital.
Indonesian siege
This patient and other patients and those trapped in the Indonesian hospital have only one meal a day, and he tells Tel Aviv Tribune Net that “every minute that passes here while we are alive is a new life (..) We feel that death is close to us and may snatch our souls at any moment.” .
There are 18 people inside this small government hospital, including 10 medical staff, and 8 patients and wounded, the youngest of whom is the wounded child Sarah Nassar.
Sarah (4 years old) tells Tel Aviv Tribune Net that she finds little water to drink, and even water for hygiene is not available, and she is forced to use medical solution to wash her face and body, as the occupation forces destroyed the hospital’s water station and tanks.
Despite her young age, this child, who along with her mother suffers from wounds and fractures as a result of an Israeli air strike, realizes that she is besieged in the hospital, and that danger surrounds her from all sides. She says, “I want to go (displace) to western Gaza,” which is the area to which she seems accustomed. It was heard repeatedly by the occupation, while demanding residents of the north to leave their homes and migrate towards the western areas of Gaza City.
Local estimates indicate that Gaza City, the largest city in the small coastal strip, is currently crowded with about half a million Palestinians, including about 180,000 from Jabalia camp and the towns of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, who were forced to flee as a result of the horrific massacres committed by the occupation forces during the three months. past.
Medical resilience
The administrations of the Indonesian Hospital and Al-Awda (a civil association) are committed to staying and not being displaced, and while the former is completely out of service, the director of Al-Awda, Muhammad Salha, tells Al-Jazeera Net, “We will remain here and will not evacuate the hospital even if there is one citizen left in the north who needs medical service.”
The Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “A previous attempt was made to evacuate some patients and displaced people from hospitals in the north, and despite coordination with the World Health Organization and competent international bodies, the occupation stopped two cars carrying 10 people and arrested 4 of them, and then… People are afraid to leave and are clinging to staying in hospitals until their last breath.”
In order to force Al Awda Hospital to be forcibly evacuated, the occupation forces imposed a siege on it, and the matter reached the point of threatening to bomb it on the heads of those inside it. According to Salha, “a prisoner held by the occupation brought us a written message two days ago that he should be evacuated, otherwise we will die, and we refused because we have patients and hospitals cannot be evacuated.” In this way, he returned to us again about an hour and a half later and stood in front of the entrance to the reception building with a Quadcopter flying above his head, carrying a verbal threat message that the hospital would be bombed above our heads.
There are 112 people inside the hospital – including 38 patients – and Salha adds, “In the period between the two messages, an Israeli march threw a bomb at the door of the reception building and two employees were injured,” and at night they destroyed the only fuel tank that contained a small quantity, and with determination he asserts, “No matter what happens, we will not abandon the patients.” “We will not evacuate the hospital in this way.”
The occupation forces are continuing to tighten the noose around Al Awda Hospital, bombing and besieging it. Since the ground operation in Jabalia Camp and the North Governorate, they have continued to refuse access to any humanitarian mission from the World Health Organization and the competent bodies to supply it with fuel, medicines and medical supplies.
According to Saliha, in light of the departure of Kamal Adwan and the Indonesian from service, “Al-Awda” became alone in those areas, “and we contacted the World Health Organization in order to provide us with the necessary supplies to ensure the continuity of our work as the only hospital still standing in the besieged and devastated north.”
Salha points out that Al-Awda cannot cover all the necessary health services, especially since 70% of the injuries resulting from the Israeli bombing require orthopedic surgery, while the hospital and all regions of the north have a single surgeon who only performs life-saving surgeries, while the occupation has arrested Head of the Orthopedic Department at Al Awda Hospital, Dr. Muhammad Obaid, while he was in Kamal Adwan Hospital at the time of the raid.
death sentence
The picture appears darker in the Indonesian hospital and its surroundings, and its director, Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan, tells Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the hospital has been taken out of service since the first days of the recent ground operation against Jabalia camp and the North Governorate.
Continuing to prevent the hospital from resuming work or providing any medical service to patients, the occupation forces destroyed electricity generators, oxygen stations, a station and water tanks a few days ago. In view of this, the Sultan confirms: “Our situation here is difficult and complicated, as there is no water, food, or medicine, and there is no We have no capabilities to provide medical service.”
The Sultan sees what the Indonesian hospital is currently being subjected to as a “death sentence” for those inside it, and says, “We addressed World Health to put it before its responsibilities and find an alternative, such as establishing a field hospital near us to provide medical service.”
Director General of the Government Media Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, said, “After completely removing Kamal Adwan from service, the occupation forces are continuing their crime by escalating the threat against the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals, in a deliberate and systematic policy aimed at destroying the health infrastructure in the Strip.”
Despite the occupation’s false claims of using hospitals for military purposes, it has failed miserably to provide any evidence to prove the validity of its claims and lies. The government official adds, “It has become clear that these crimes come in the context of the policy of ethnic cleansing and the generals’ criminal plan that seeks to displace our people from the North Governorate.” .
Al-Thawabta estimates that 40,000 Palestinians are deprived of health care in the northern regions, as a result of the systematic targeting policy against hospitals and health facilities that has not stopped since the outbreak of the genocidal war against the Gaza Strip and which has escalated in its second year in a row.
