Gaza’s collapsing health system is one of the goals of Israel’s genocide
Injured Palestinians receive treatment inside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital on 22 April 2024
Qassam Muaddi and Tareq S Hajjaj write in Mondoweiss on 2 May 2024:
Rotting wounds, starvation, babies born in tents without anesthesia, the spread of infectious disease, and the severe lack of medicine are all part of the new normal for over two million people living in Gaza.
Last week, the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry said that about 600,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any kind of healthcare. It also warned that medicine fridges and the only oxygen plant in Gaza are at risk of shutting down due to the systematic lack of fuel. The World Health Organization has said that Israel is “systematically dismantling” the health system in Gaza. Save The Children has reported that Israel’s attacks on the health sector in Gaza have been higher than in any other conflict — at the rate of 73 attacks per day.
But one of the most major blows that Gaza’s health system suffered was in early April, following a two-week Israeli siege of al-Shifa Hospital, leaving the medical compound completely and permanently non-operational. The aftermath of the siege revealed that a massacre had occurred. Mondoweiss gathered testimonies from survivors of how it was carried out by Israeli soldiers, which included rounding up people in the hospital, separating them into groups identified by differently-colored bracelets, and executing one of the groups before burying them in mass graves.
Al-Shifa was the largest Palestinian medical complex in all of historic Palestine. Founded under the British Mandate in 1946, it grew over the years until it became the Gaza Strip’s primary medical hub, housing 25% of its medical staff. It was the beating heart of Gaza’s health system.