Eyewitnesses and experts described the harrowing healthcare situation to UK MPs on Tuesday [Getty]
Doctors and medical staff on the ground in Gaza painted a grim picture for UK members of parliament on Tuesday, describing the dire healthcare crisis gripping the besieged enclave.
During a meeting with MPs and the International Development Committee, they shared firsthand accounts of overcrowded hospitals, severe shortages of medical supplies, and relentless violence impacting civilians.
British professor Nizam Mamode, a former transplant surgery specialist who had spent time in the Nasser Hospital, which Israeli forces raided and besieged in February, spoke of his experience in Gaza.
He told the MPs that the scenes he witnessed “resembled Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” with devastated landscapes and buildings reduced to rubble.
“Most people in Gaza have been forced to move six or seven times,” he said.
“There are constant drones, which existed before October last year – this has been a feature of Palestinian life for some time – but now they instil fear” he added.
Mamode was in Gaza from mid-August to mid-September and said much of what he saw was distressing.
“There were clear, deliberate, and persistent acts, where after a bomb would drop, drones would come and target civilians and children… 60 percent of the people we treated were women and children,” he said.
“The bullets the drones fire are small cuboid pellets, which I fished out of children. The youngest I operated on was a three-year-old who had a major injury to the artery in her neck. We used our last material we had in the hospital…she died about three or four days later from infection” he added, stating there was no question the attacks were intentional.
Mamode said even basic medical equipment, such as swabs, sterile gloves and paracetamol were unavailable in Gaza.
“Medical aid was sitting at the border and not allowed in. We were not allowed to bring in any medicine except for personal use, and that’s a policy which is a deliberate restriction,” he said, adding that wounds often had maggots in due to a lack of hygiene and essentials such as soap.
During the session, witnesses said conditions such as Hepatitis A spread were widely in Gaza due to a lack of vaccinations and hygiene.
Speakers also noted that many medical workers had minimal experience or training, as numerous specialists had been killed or were detained by Israeli forces.
Speakers highlighted that malnutrition and disease were among the most significant challenges faced by Palestinians in the enclave, while those with pre-existing conditions, such as cancer, saw their health deteriorate – described as the “uncounted costs of war.”
Mamode noted that UN convoys were directly fired at by Israeli forces, emphasising that a significant number of aid workers had been “deliberately targeted”.
“There was a deeply troubling pattern of victims with three or four gunshot wounds to the shoulder or groin, indicating the use of a semi-autonomous drone… one seven-year-old boy came in with his stomach exposed; whether he is still alive, I don’t know,” Mamode said, describing the patients who arrived at the hospital where he was working.
‘Catastrophic consequences’
During the session, Sam Rose, the senior deputy director for UNRWA affairs in Gaza, highlighted the dire situation in Gaza caused by Israel’s bans and restrictions on the organisation’ss operations.
“The impact [of the ban] will be devastating…when people live in the squalor they are living in, diseases spread massively, like we have seen with polio recently,” he said, noting that no other organisation in the Gaza had the capacity to carry out the assistance UNRWA was providing.
Rohan Talbot, the director of advocacy for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said that Gaza would slip into “total system collapse” if UNRWA was banned.
“It would be impossible for other organisations to fill the gap that UNRWA has left, as it is the backbone of humanitarian aid, in terms of clinics, logistics and food distribution,” he said.
“Our priority needs to be to protect UNRWA as there is no viable alternative,” he added.
The speakers said that allowing aid into the Strip would make a significant difference and save many lives.
The session concluded with speakers expressing that many Palestinians feel abandoned by the international community and emphasizing the urgent medical needs in the Strip, including essentials like antibiotics, swabs, gowns, catheters, specialized imaging equipment, and dialysis machines.
Monday’s session marked the second time British MPs held a hearing to receive evidence on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others since 7 October 2023. The war, described by many as genocide, has devastated entire neighbourhoods and plunged the strip into a deep humanitarian crisis.