‘Not enough of anything’, says surgeon, as Israel’s assault forces injured, sick and hungry people to leave Gaza City
The few remaining hospitals and clinics in central and southern Gaza are being overwhelmed by a “tsunami” of injured and sick patients fleeing a new Israeli offensive in the north of the devastated territory, medics say.
At both Nasser medical complex, in the southern city of Khan Younis, and field hospitals in al-Muwasi, the coastal “humanitarian zone” designated by Israel, staff are struggling to cope with large numbers of new arrivals forced out of Gaza City in the north of the devastated Palestinian territory.
“We are seeing more people every day from the north with blast and bullet injuries, with old, dirty and infected wounds,” said Dr Martin Griffiths, a consultant trauma surgeon at Barts NHS health trust in London who arrived as a volunteer in Gaza two weeks ago. “Every one is hungry, malnourished, has lost their home and loved ones, and every one is scared. We have not got enough of anything.”
Griffiths said the emergency department of the 90-bed field hospital where he was working in al-Muwasi had received 160 injured in a single night, with 600 people seeking treatment from its small primary health care clinic.
