DOCTORS Without Borders has given a grim update on Gaza’s medical infrastructure, with emergency co-ordinators observing deliberate destruction of medical devices.
In an update titled “In North Gaza, the health system has been reduced to ashes” the leading health NGO outlines how the region is “almost uninhabitable”.
Doctors Without Borders say that teams in northern Gaza found burned down hospitals and people living in the rubble of their homes with no other shelter amid winter conditions.
Emergency co-ordinator Caroline Seguin shared that: “The level of destruction is total—it’s a flat land. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Our Palestinian colleagues are no longer able to recognize their own neighbourhoods. Some were in shock; others literally collapsed.”
Seguin pointed out that medical infrastructure has been completely obliterated from Israeli bombardment: “There is no health system anymore in the northern part of the strip. Kamal Adwan Hospital has been razed, while Al-Shifa, Al-Awda, and Indonesian hospitals are seriously damaged and only partially functioning.”
“We were utterly shocked to observe that in Indonesian Hospital, every medical machine seemed to have been deliberately destroyed; they were smashed to pieces, one by one, to make sure no medical care could be provided anymore”
She added: “These machines are made to save people’s lives—mothers, fathers, children. It’s devastating to see the state of these hospitals.”
As it stands, North Gaza and Gaza City currently have six paediatric intensive care beds compared to 150 before the war’s outbreak. The number of patient hospital beds has plummeted from 2000 to 350.
Doctors Without Borders also notes that the need for food, water, tents, and shelter materials in Gaza remains critical, with water shortages posing a real challenge given the high level of damage to water facilities.
The NGO has begun water trucking activities in Jabalia and Beit Hanoun as they repair damaged boreholes, but they note that this is a temporary solution not sufficient to meet the dire needs of the local population.
“The problem is that because of the war, we [concentrated] our activities in the south and it now takes time to redeploy them to the north.”
