TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / September 6, 2024
“And while the resilience of the Palestinian people is widely revered and admired, what we witnessed is a deeply traumatized and exhausted population.”
Three medical specialists who recently returned from the besieged Gaza Strip have urged the international and medical community to demand a permanent ceasefire in the enclave, sharing harrowing testimonies of their experiences in an opinion piece published by Politico.
As the Israeli military launched yet another attack on a designated safe zone sheltering internally displaced people, they described what the medical personnel came to expect.
“And in the next half hour, the emergency room will be full of burnt, dismembered and eviscerated patients, many of whom are children — just like last time, and the time before,” they wrote. “All we can do is prepare in anticipation.”
Michael Berry, an anesthetist and intensive care doctor; Suheal Khan, an orthopedic surgeon; and Edward Brown, a consultant vascular and general surgeon; recently returned from volunteering in one of Medical Aid for Palestinians’ and International Rescue Committee’s emergency medical teams in Gaza, according to Politico.
‘Repeatedly displaced’
They relate how one of the Palestinian anesthetists copes with the news of his cousin and neighbor having been killed in the airstrike.
“He continues working, relieved his wife and sons are uninjured. It’s only later that he recognizes his cousin laying in the operating theater, having passed away during surgery; his body too mangled to have been initially recognized,” they said.
Not long after, the local anesthetist is forced to evacuate due to the latest attack on Khan Yunis. “He has nowhere to go,” the specialists added.
“And while the resilience of the Palestinian people is widely revered and admired, what we witnessed is a deeply traumatized and exhausted population. People repeatedly displaced, homeless, chased around a destroyed slip of land where no place is truly safe,” they stressed.
‘Triangle of death’
The doctors continued: “What we’re seeing in Gaza is a triangle of death: one of famine”, dehydration and disease, with the rise of communicable epidemics — such as Hepatitis A and now Polio — due to poor sanitation conditions and lack of vaccinations for children.”
The Palestinian Ministry of Health declared Gaza a polio epidemic zone at the end of July, and on August 16 confirmed the first case of polio in a 10-month-old child.
They lauded their Palestinian colleagues who had lost family during the bombings, “only briefly stopping their work to acknowledge the loss.”
Most haven’t been paid for months yet still come to work, they continued, while “some don’t even stop to leave the hospital, while their families struggle to survive in ruined buildings or tents without sanitation, in the oppressive heat and humidity.
Legality of war
The doctors emphasized that “We are doctors, not lawyers, but the legal principle of proportionality appears absent in these recent attacks. And proportionality is critical in determining the legality of an act of war.”
Pointing out that they “don’t aim to take sides,” they said it is “beyond doubt that most injured parties are civilians — women and children. In a short space of time, we all saw far too many broken, burnt, distorted bodies; destroyed families; maimed and orphaned children; shattered futures.”
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 40,878 Palestinians have been killed, and 94,454 wounded since October 7. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The doctors also raised concern about the reconstructive efforts “required for a place reduced to rubble,” saying it “will be colossal.”
The everyday health care system, they stressed, “will need to be rebuilt from scratch; and the mental health burden, often ignored in acute conflict, is vast, with many reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, complex grief and depression.”
“We urge the international and medical community to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and to allow access to the humanitarian aid so desperately needed in Gaza,” the doctors wrote.
Ongoing genocide
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
