Hospital director in northern Gaza amidst deadly Israeli siege : Valley Vision

As the deadly siege of northern Gaza continues, Dr Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital at the Jabaliya refugee camp, reaffirmed that he will not leave behind the patients and people, defying pressure from the Israeli Occupational Forces to evacuate.

Speaking to Maktoob, Salha said quadcopter drones have been firing on the hospital building with hundreds of patients inside and unmanned robots are shooting at “everything that moves” in the street.

He is convinced that if they evacuate, “hundreds will die”.

Salha and his staff braved a two-week-long siege on the hospital earlier this year and lost staff who were killed in the medical facility by Israeli snipers.50% of the hospital capacity was destroyed in the siege in May 2024, he said.

On Wednesday, the Gaza-based government media office appealed for a safe passage into besieged northern Gaza to save the health system, which has been suffering “catastrophic and unprecedented” conditions since Israel launched a new military assault there on 5 October. 

“This is an urgent appeal to help save what can be saved in the North Gaza Governorate, which is being subjected to genocide. The governorate and its hospitals are experiencing a catastrophic situation in every sense of the word,” the statement reads. 

Describing the situation, Salha said hundreds have been killed and their bodies are not recovered due to the siege.

“People are bleeding to death in the streets. We can’t send ambulances,” he said, speaking on the phone, claiming that even in streets where occupational forces are not there, they have placed robots which fire indiscriminately.

Over 300 Palestinians have been killed in the siege with the numbers spiking every hour. Israel has also blocked any food aid from entering northern Gaza since October 05. 

A substantial backlog of over 12,000 patients awaits urgent medical evacuation outside the Gaza Strip, according to the UN.

“Northern Gaza wiped off the map”

“We have to feed 200 people who are in the hospital. Food is nowhere,” the director told Matkoob. No markets are open and only one supply of aid that has come through the World Health Organization mission reached the hospital.

some 400,000 Palestinians living in northern Gaza are facing starvation, according to UN estimates.

On 12 October, a WHO-led mission delivered 5000 litres of fuel to the hospital that can keep the facility running for “eight days”. Salha said the stock is only for three more days. 

According to WHO, only five out of 15 medical points in North Gaza that were functioning in the last few months are now considered functional. As of 13 October 2024, Al-Awda, Indonesian, and Kamal Adwan hospitals in North Gaza are operating at minimal capacity, with all fuel supplies depleted and more than ten trauma-related fatalities reported on hospitals’ grounds since the military operation in northern Gaza began.

The three hospitals currently have 285 patients, including eight children and five adults on ventilators in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and 161 patients in the emergency department. Many of the patients urgently require advanced surgeries, such as neurosurgery and vascular surgery. 

Al-Awda Hospital is the only hospital in northern Gaza still providing maternity services and orthopaedic surgery services, according to Salha. He said he had to go to other two hospitals for supplies due to shortage, risking his life.

At Al-Awda, there are also two pregnant women and six new mothers who have been unable to return home and remain hospitalized. 

Al-Awda has 146 staff out of which only 85 are available as people in Gaza City are not able to return to work since the siege. Only six of them live nearby, forcing the 79 people to live in the hospital the whole time, with limited clean water or food.

At least 42,409 Palestinians have been killed and 99,153 wounded in Israel’s attack on Gaza since October 2023, the health ministry said on October 16. The real number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught is far higher with an estimated 10,000 bodies buried in Gaza’s vast destruction.

Salha’s sister and her family are among the people presumed dead under the rubble. He said they died in an attack last December. 

“It’s almost a year. We have not got their bodies to bury them,” he said.

The Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza has escalated to a “horrifying level of atrocity” as “northern Gaza is being wiped off the map,” dozens of prominent NGOs have said in a statement.

“This is not an evacuation – this is forced displacement under gunfire,” the statement said. “The world cannot continue to stand by as the Israeli government commits these atrocities. Global leaders have both a legal and moral duty to act now,” it added.