Two Australian doctors, Dr Nada Abu Alrub and Dr Saya Aziz, recounted the harrowing details of their work under constant Israeli bombardment and severe medical shortages amid the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, they spoke about the dire situation governing al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest medical facility.
The duo had moved to there from the al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip, enduring an eight-hour-long journey that would normally take 20 minutes. They said the constant evacuations throughout the territory of people fleeing the constant Israeli bombing as the reason behind the delay.
‘It’s a nightmare,’ Abu Alrub said, citing back-to-back bombings of al-Shifa by Israeli Apache helicopter gunships, supersonic stealth strike F-35 warplanes, and F-16 aircraft.
The aggression, going on without a letup, she said, would take place as patients and dead bodies kept arriving in overwhelming numbers.
She reported over 1,500 people still trapped under rubble and attacks on the hospital entrance in consecutive days.
The hospital conditions are chaotic amid worrying unsanitary conditions, with medical staff lacking basic supplies such as soap, gloves, and anaesthetics.
She also said that patients were being treated on the floor, and doctors had only ketamine for comfort.
She said: ‘One mass casualty today, at least 10 to 20 (were) dead on arrival or GCS3 that we can’t do anything about.’
In a particularly heart-wrenching incident, Abu Alrub delivered a baby via emergency C-section from a nine-months-pregnant ‘beheaded lady’, with the baby girl surviving.
The doctors live under constant fear, receiving no evacuation orders, no internet, and no electricity, she added, stressing, ‘We are hardly surviving and hardly able to help anyone.’
Aziz, meanwhile, described the conditions as ‘catastrophic’, with patients often arriving on their own mattresses rescued from rubble, sometimes carried by family members.
According to her, the hospital is filthy, flies infest rooms, and essential medical supplies are absent.
‘Healthcare is not collapsing, it has collapsed.
‘Bombs drop constantly, inflicting psychological damage’ Aziz said, and noted that the victims were predominantly children, women, and young families.
Dr Mutaz Harara, head of al-Shifa’s emergency department, also stated that medical teams no longer feel safe, with many fleeing south.
He reported that colleagues had been imprisoned, tortured, or killed, and that hospitals were left exposed without protection under international law.
According to reports, nearly half a million Gaza City residents have fled in anticipation of a major Israeli ground offensive.
The offensive, part of the regime’s so-called Gideon Chariots II assault, aims to bring the city, the Gaza Strip’s largest urban area, under wholesale occupation.
In all, the genocide has claimed the lives of around 65,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since its onset on October 7th, 2023.
The fatalities include more than 1,700 medical personnel, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which announced on Monday that the Rantisi Children’s Hospital and the Eye Hospital have gone completely out of service as a result of Israel’s ongoing attacks on the vicinity of the two hospitals, in addition to the destruction of a medical relief centre in Gaza City.
The ministry said that Rantisi Hospital had been directly bombed a few days ago, causing extensive damage. The Eye Hospital is the only public hospital providing ophthalmology services in Gaza, while Rantisi is the main place offering essential services that are unavailable elsewhere.
The ministry stressed that the occupation army is ‘deliberately and systematically targeting the healthcare system in Gaza Governorate as part of the genocide it is waging on the Strip,’ warning that all facilities and hospitals now lack safe routes for patients and the wounded to reach them.
Patients and the injured are facing extreme difficulty in even reaching the Jordanian Field Hospital and the Al-Quds Hospital because of the ongoing Israeli bombing and attacks.
The ministry renewed its call on all concerned parties to ‘urgently provide protection for health institutions and medical staff’ in the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, the Kuwaiti Hospital announced it had suspended all scheduled surgeries and would only be able to perform life-saving operations because of the severe shortages of medicines and medical supplies.
Earlier, the World Health Organisation confirmed that the occupation forces have systematically targeted the healthcare system in Gaza, bombing hospitals, striking medical facilities, and threatening the lives of staff and patients.
It stressed that such actions could amount to war crimes.
The WHO added: ‘The impact of this genocidal war extends beyond direct attacks. The Israeli authorities have imposed a total blockade and strict restrictions on fuel, water, food, and medical supplies.
‘A recent survey conducted in our Gaza clinics revealed that 25 per cent of pregnant or breastfeeding women suffer from malnutrition, which may increase the risk of foetal deaths, miscarriages, and premature births.’
Multiple Palestinian civilians were killed and dozens injured on Monday afternoon in the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza City.
Dozens of people were killed and others were injured, when Israeli fighter jets struck a residential building in the Al-Samar area in central Gaza City.
In the meantime, one civilian was killed and others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house near Al-Shifa Tower, west of Gaza City.
A child was killed when a drone struck a vehicle in the Al-Farouq neighbourhood, east of the town of Al-Zawaida, in the central Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes also carried out intensive strikes on civilian homes near Al-Quds Open University, northwest of Gaza City.
Thousands of people are also feared missing under the rubble of targeted houses, buildings, or on the streets, as Israeli airstrikes and massive destruction continue to hinder the efforts of ambulance and rescue crews.
In the West Bank on Monday, Israeli forces began bulldozing Palestinian-owned land in the village of Husan, west of Bethlehem.
Rami Hamamra, director of the Husan Village Council, reported that the occupation forces razed the land in the residential area near the western entrance to the village, estimated at approximately 300 dunams.
In July, Israeli authorities seized a total of 31 dunams of land through five military land seizure orders, aimed at establishing three buffer zones around the Sidi Boaz outpost on al-Khader lands, and another on Arab al-Ta’amra lands in the Bethlehem Governorate.
During the same period, Israel carried out 75 demolitions affecting 122 structures, including 60 inhabited homes, 11 uninhabited ones, 22 agricultural buildings, barns and stables, and 26 offices. These demolitions were concentrated in the governorates of Jerusalem (53), Ramallah (22), and 18 in Bethlehem.
Around 300 Israeli settlers stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday morning through the Maghariba Gate, under heavy protection from Israeli occupation police forces, as part of activities marking the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.
The raids included blowing the shofar inside the Mosque’s courtyards in an attempt to impose Talmudic rituals .
Israeli police imposed strict security measures across occupied Jerusalem, setting up military checkpoints throughout the Old City and restricting Palestinian worshippers’ access to al-Aqsa.