Buckling Gaza Health Service Turns to Volunteers

Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)
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Buckling Gaza Health Service Turns to Volunteers

Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)

Gaza medical chiefs are turning to volunteers to help run an emergency service buckling under Israel's offensive as ambulances struggle to reach bomb sites past rubble-strewn roads and with ever-depleting supplies of fuel.

Medical and emergency staff have worked with little rest and are deploying in the most dangerous areas, witnessing the horror of violent death, terrible injuries and grief.

Gaza's health ministry has called on all trained paramedics to help staff hospitals and call-out teams, but though dozens have responded the system is still in dire need of more workers, it said.

"I have not gone home since the first day of the war. I shower here, sleep here and eat here," said Loay al-Astal, a volunteer emergency worker in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave.

Health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say Israeli air and artillery strikes have killed more than 8,000 people since Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters rampaged through security barriers to kill more than 1,400 Israelis and take more than 200 hostage.

After Israel began ground operations on Friday, many Gaza residents fear the destruction will intensify.

Israel has ordered civilians to leave the northern half of the Gaza Strip for the south, but has continued an intense bombardment across the enclave and many people are refusing to leave.

Shelling on Gaza's main north-south road on Monday meant the enclave was all but cut in two, with any attempts to flee south risking bombardment.

The health ministry said 116 medical staff had been killed in the bombardment since Oct. 7, along with 18 civil emergency department rescuers.

Astal, the volunteer who had trained at university to be a paramedic but was unemployed when the war began, described an incident in which some of his colleagues had nearly been killed by an air strike that blew out the windows of their ambulance.

"The glass was smashed and some of our volunteers were wounded," he said.

He is haunted by the memory of trying to save a woman who was buried up to her neck in rubble from an air strike. "There was a cut on her head and I rushed to treat the wound," Astal, 33, said.

She asked him to free her from the rubble so she could find her son, but she died minutes later, still trapped, he said. "I felt bad I couldn't save her," he said.

'Where should we go?'

The head of the Khan Younis ambulance service, Naseem Hassan, said the department was overwhelmed and needed trained medics. "We opened the door for volunteers and many young people answered that call and have been on duty since the war began," he said.

Along with the bombardment, Israel has imposed a blockade on the enclave, home to 2.3 million people, cutting supplies of electricity and fuel. Limited food and medical aid deliveries have entered Gaza since last week after international pressure on Israel.

"Ambulances are about to go out of operation because we have very limited fuel left. We have problems with communications. We lose touch with the ambulances that leave here," said volunteer driver Sari al-Najjar.

Phone and internet services in Gaza were cut off for nearly two days over the weekend as Israeli tanks started moving into the enclave. Communications gradually started returning from Sunday.

Without reliable power supplies, many residents were unable to charge phones, adding to the difficulties for ambulance crews trying to locate and coordinate rescues.

Thousands of people have gathered at hospitals in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, many sheltering in makeshift tents hoping for some safety from the bombardment.

Medical officials said air strikes in the vicinity of the major Gaza City hospitals including al-Shifa, al-Quds and the Turkish Friendship hospital, have caused damage.

Israel has accused Hamas of placing command centers and weaponry near hospitals, which the group denies.

"Where should we go? It is all one death," said Hatem Sultan, sheltering near al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave's biggest medical center, where ambulances were constantly arriving with people injured in air strikes.



Little Hope in Gaza that Arrest Warrants will Cool Israeli Onslaught

Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
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Little Hope in Gaza that Arrest Warrants will Cool Israeli Onslaught

Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights

Gazans saw little hope on Friday that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders would slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 24 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.

In Gaza City in the north, an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia killed eight people, medics said. Three others were killed in a strike near a bakery and a fisherman was killed as he set out to sea. In the central and southern areas, 12 people were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave, their main offensive since early last month. The military says it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from waging attacks and regrouping there; residents say they fear the aim is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies.

Residents in the three besieged towns on the northern edge - Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun - said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.

An Israeli strike hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the area, injuring six medical staff, some critically, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.

"The strike also destroyed the hospital's main generator, and punctured the water tanks, leaving the hospital without oxygen or water, which threatens the lives of patients and staff inside the hospital," it added. It said 85 wounded people including children and women were inside, eight in the ICU.

Later on Friday, the Gaza health ministry said all hospital services across the enclave would stop within 48 hours unless fuel shipments are permitted, blaming restrictions which Israel says are designed to stop fuel being used by Hamas.

Gazans saw the ICC's decision to seek the arrest of Israeli leaders for suspected war crimes as international recognition of the enclave's plight. But those queuing for bread at a bakery in the southern city of Khan Younis were doubtful it would have any impact.

"The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel, and it can veto anything. Israel will not be held accountable," said Saber Abu Ghali, as he waited for his turn in the crowd.

Saeed Abu Youssef, 75, said even if justice were to arrive, it would be decades late: "We have been hearing decisions for more than 76 years that have not been implemented and haven't done anything for us."

Since Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste.

The court's prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war, as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza".

The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of the top Hamas commander Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif. Israel says it has already killed him, which Hamas has not confirmed.

Israel says Hamas is to blame for all harm to Gaza's civilians, for operating among them, which Hamas denies.

Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have denounced the ICC arrest warrants as biased and based on false evidence, and Israel says the court has no jurisdiction over the war. Hamas hailed the arrest warrants as a first step towards justice.

Efforts by Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt backed by the United States to conclude a ceasefire deal have stalled. Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.