Rafah, Gaza Strip – A convoy of ambulances lined up on the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing.
Inside one of them was volunteer rescuer Khader Shamout, but he was not there to transport the injured. Shamout was transporting people injured in an Israeli airstrike on October 20 when his ambulance was hit.
His arm was seriously injured. Initially, doctors amputated it below the elbow, but repeated infections forced him to undergo seven surgeries and more amputations. His arm is now amputated above the elbow and requires further surgery.
“The pain is excruciating,” he said. “I ask Egypt to treat me well so that I can return to Gaza and live a better life. I hope I will have one last operation. All I want is to be with my young family, my two-year-old son and my granddaughter, safe and sound.
For the first time since October 7, when Israel launched its offensive on the Gaza Strip following a Hamas attack that left more than 1,400 dead in Israel, foreign nationals, some Palestinians with dual nationality and dozens of injured people were allowed to leave the Gaza Strip. According to the General Authority for Crossings in Gaza, 76 injured Palestinians have so far crossed the border into Egypt.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 8,796 Palestinians were killed during more than three weeks of Israeli air raids, including 3,648 children, and 22,000 people were injured. Hospitals, overwhelmed by the large number of victims and short of fuel due to Israel’s “total siege” of the Gaza Strip, are in a state of collapse. At least 16 of the territory’s 35 hospitals have been forced to close their doors, as have 51 of its 72 primary health care clinics.
25 days ago there was a day of work on the street. #مصر 22000 liter فلسطيني، أي ما نسبته أقل من 0.34٪
شكرا مصر— هاني عواد | Hani Awad (@Hani_awwad) October 31, 2023
Translation: On the 25th day of the start of the aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza, Egypt decided to open the Rafah crossing in order to accommodate 81 injured Palestinians out of more than 22,000 injured Palestinians, a percentage lower than 0.34%. Thank you Egypt.
Major General Mohamed Shusha, governor of Egypt’s North Sinai, said hospitals in his region had 300 beds available for patients from the Gaza Strip and that a medical team from the Egyptian side of the border would assess the patients before transferring them to hospitals.
Egypt has also prepared a 50-bed field hospital in Sheikh Zuweid, 15 km from Rafah, and plans to send some of the most serious cases to hospitals elsewhere in the Sinai region or further afield in the city of Ismailia.
“There are thousands more”
Hisham Adwan, spokesman for the General Crossings Authority, explained that Egypt had informed them on Tuesday evening that the border, the only crossing point out of the Gaza Strip, would be open. But the small number allowed to cross represents only a fraction of those who need treatment.
“There are thousands of serious cases suffering from burns or traumatic injuries, and they also need medical treatment abroad,” he said.
“We need fuel to operate hospitals and for ambulances and other vehicles used by civil protection teams to rescue people from under the rubble,” he explained. “We want the border post to be open daily in order to transfer the seriously injured so that they can benefit from the best care. »
Naseem Hasan, a paramedic who was at the Rafah crossing, said the injured were transferred from four different hospitals: al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the European Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. , and Al-Aqsa Hospital. Deir el-Balah Martyrs Hospital.
“These injured people need advanced care and operations,” he said. “There are thousands more who need to be referred to a doctor. There are no beds available in intensive care units in Gaza hospitals. »
Many of the injured had severe burns and required immediate intensive care, he said, adding: “These are injuries we have never seen before.”
Hoping for a better future
Saeed Imran, 23, was on his way to his job as a laborer on October 10 when an Israeli airstrike hit a building near his home in Khan Younis.
He woke up in hospital with shrapnel in his head and right eye.
“Now I can only see out of my left eye,” he said. “I had an operation on my right eye but the hospital said I needed another one to save my eye and a referral. But the second operation was canceled because the necessary supplies were in a warehouse bombed by Israel.
Imran was accompanied by his father Amin.
“The situation is very difficult,” explains the 56-year-old. “People, fearing being buried alive in their own homes, are sleeping in the streets. Others queue from 2 a.m. until the afternoon just to pick up a bag of bread from a bakery.
When crossing, Amin was turned away because he did not have his passport with him. While patients only needed their ID cards, issued by the Israeli army, those traveling with the wounded needed their passports to cross.
For Imran, saying goodbye to his family was particularly difficult.
“I don’t know if they will be alive or dead when I return,” he said. “I just hope that life gets better for everyone in Gaza. »
