LONDON: British doctors forced to stop working and flee what appears to be the only hospital in the central Gaza Strip that is still functioning expressed “deep concern” about their patients and the remaining staff there as Israel’s war on the territory enters its fourth month.
Deborah Harrington, who worked for Medical Aid for Palestinians as an obstetrician at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, told the BBC that Israel’s ongoing military operation in the territory has resulted in “a real decrease” in the number of staff able to work at the facility in the past two weeks.
She said between 600 and 700 patients were still being treated inside the hospital each day, and hundreds of displaced Palestinians are sheltering there or in the vicinity.
Surgeon Nick Maynard told the BBC: “Without any functioning or sufficient healthcare staff, it will be an unmitigated disaster for those people living in middle Gaza.”
Hospitals are specifically protected by international humanitarian law from attacks. Any military operations in the vicinity of medical facilities must take precautions to protect patients, healthcare workers and other civilians.
Medical Aid for Palestinians and the International Rescue Committee said on Monday that their workers had been “forced to withdraw and cease activities” because of “increasing Israeli military activity” around Al-Aqsa Hospital.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it had “received troubling reports of increasing hostilities and ongoing evacuation orders near the vital Al-Aqsa hospital … which, according to the facility’s director, forced over 600 patients and most health workers to leave.”
He added that Al-Aqsa was “the most important hospital remaining in Gaza’s middle area and must remain functional, and protected, to deliver its lifesaving services. Further erosion of its functionality cannot be permitted. Doing so in the face of such trauma, injury and humanitarian suffering would be a moral and medical outrage.”
