Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
Rafah- In a small tent that resembles an oven, due to the extreme heat inside, Youssef lies on a modest bed to receive treatment, while his injured companion, Reem, tries to heal her deep wound, using words of patience and perseverance.
Reem says, “I was injured in December while I was with my family at home. My foot injury was severe and required an operation. Due to the lack of hospitals, I came to the British Field Hospital, where the doctors here try to provide whatever treatments they have.”
Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Maher Shamiya, says, “In Rafah, the medical institutions stopped working faster, if we compare that with the rest of the health facilities in the Gaza Strip.”
Emergency stop
Since the start of the attack on Rafah, 6 hospitals have been out of service, in light of the continued and expanding Israeli incursion and its deliberate targeting of many hospitals and primary care centers, according to Maher Shamiya’s testimony.
The attacks put Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital, Abu Al-Walid Central Clinic, Rafah Field Hospital (2), Kuwait Specialized Hospital, Indonesian Field Hospital, and Tal Al-Sultan Clinic out of service.
The head of the Emergency Committee in Rafah, Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, announced that stopping electricity generators in hospitals would lead to a large number of deaths, calling for the need for “the world” to intervene, as he put it. He stressed that no medicines have entered the Gaza Strip since the occupation closed the Rafah crossing.
Israel began its attack on Rafah on May 6, and since that time all health facilities, hospitals, primary care centers, and field hospitals, with the exception of those operating in the west of the city, “Mawasi Rafah area,” have stopped working, and the city was evacuated.
Although UN and international organizations warned that the occupation army was targeting the health system and medical staff in the Gaza Strip, it ignored these warnings and targeted many hospitals, which exacerbated the situation inside the Gaza Strip.