Tag: Al Awda hospital

Where will they go?

22nd July 2014 | Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

The attack has been going on for over two weeks. I was awakened early this morning by explosions that were so close that they shook the house. Then came a phone call, telling me that there was an apartment building nearby, where a woman from New Zealand had been targeted.

I got hold of her, she wasn’t injured, but a little stressed. She was contemplating whether she should try to find other accommodation, or stay. I understood her hesitation. To find other accommodation, now that 150,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, a figure that is constantly rising, is not the easiest. Nor is it much safer elsewhere. When hospital after hospital is bombed, you realize that there are no safe places here.

As I arrived, a group of journalists in helmets and bulletproof vests had gathered, waiting for the next attack on the same house. It was burning on the top floor, but it had not been completely destroyed. It wasn’t hit by the more powerful missiles from F-16, more likely from drones. The fire brigade was there, but in fear of more attacks they didn’t go inside the building.

Then they came.

Two missiles through the air, explosions, and a cloud of smoke rising. Journalists rushed forward to get better pictures. People who were evacuated from nearby buildings, very few with belongings, most of them without anything but small children in their arms. Many of them did not even have shoes on their feet. And there was the same contemplation as my friend from New Zealand: Where will they go?

I had a meeting and went to Awda hospital in northern Jabalya, a refugee camp north of Gaza City. On the way I passed several blown up houses with glass and building materials scattered in the streets, and in front of us was a thick black pillar of smoke from what I found out was a factory that produces plastic shoes. Around me explosions were constantly heard from artillery. And the buzzing of the drones, of course.

Dr. Yousef Sweeti, the hospital director, received me. Since the hospital in Beit Hanoun had been attacked, Awda is the northern most civilian hospital. They specialise in maternity care, and ear nose and throat treatment for children and the elderly. They are not primarily a hospital for emergency cases, however presently this is the majority of their patients.

Dr. Yousef Sweeti (photo by Charlie Andreasson).

Unlike several other hospitals that have been subjected to the Israeli military bombardments and threats, Awda hospital has been left alone. A discussion has been held with the largest hospital in Gaza, Shifa, on the possibility of transferring patients to Awda, something that can become urgent after the threats made on Shifa by the Israeli army. But Dr. Sweeti has had to say ‘no’. Not only for the large amounts of patients they have, which they share with all hospitals, but perhaps primarily for its geographical location; when the Israeli ground troops last entered, they were less than a kilometer away. This hospital is not a safe place.

Awda hospital is also in shortage of drugs and medical equipment, even if they are better equipped than elsewhere. For most items, they have storage for at least a month; enough if the bombardments continue for a short period of time. However oxygen supply is running critically low, and the hospital only has enough left for one day and a half. When I was shown into the office, Dr. Sweeti’s colleague was on the phone with the Red Cross trying to get them to bring in more.

Compared to the onslaught in 2012 that lasted for eight days, the situation is worse now, mainly as a result of the blockade. The supply of medicine and equipment was small to begin with, and diesel for the generators is much more expensive due to the collapsed tunnels to Egypt. A very large portion of the hospital budget goes to cover that cost.

The number of patients is far greater, this time, but most disturbingly, the injuries are different. When I had told Dr. Sweeti about the charred bodies I’ve seen after a drone attack on a taxi, he nodded in agreement

“The Israeli missiles develop a great heat, burning the bodies to ashes. I believe that Israel are testing new weapons on the Palestinian population.” He also noticed that far more bodies have been fragmented in these attacks.

We went down to one of the hospital wards and visited patients. 15-year-old Noor Al Mabhooh was admitted last night with shrapnel wounds to the feet and in one shoulder, after the Al Mabhooh family home was hit with an airstrike. Four other family members were also injured in the attack and were taken to other hospitals, an attack which was not preceded by any warning.

I thanked Dr. Sweeti for his time, and took a taxi back to my apartment. I used the opportunity to look at the destroyed houses we passed on one side of the road. Those on the other side, I had already seen.

Jan 5 night shift / UNRWA refugee schools attacked

By Sharon in Gaza
talestotell.wordpress.com

Evacuated after multiple rocket hits destroyed their home

8pm: I am due at Al Quds hospital for a Red Crescent shift at 8pm, but as I am finishing up writing with the seaside apartment’s generated electricity, the strangest noise arrives from the sea. It is a whooshing sound like a rocket coming very close; V and I look at each other, look at the seaside window – he pulls his cap lower and leans away from the window, I put my jacket over my head so I can’t see what happens. But instead of finishing with an explosion, the sound decreases again into the distance.

It is then repeated several times, and I realise what we are hearing is not rockets, but planes – very loud and incredibly fast, making me think of the term supersonic, if that even means anything outside of comics. I set off to walk the half hour dark route to Al Quds hospital, but am only half way up the hill when more planes speed over, and explosions start between me and the hospital. I completely lose my nerve, stopping still under a tree and texting Eva that I can’t do this walk by myself. The planes have freaked her out as well. I walk quickly back to the apartment, and try to work out what to do. V suggests I walk the other direction, to Al Shifa hospital, and catch an ambulance shuttling to Al Quds.

What is with these planes? This little bit of land doesn’t even have a proper army! The term “overkill” has never had more meaning. It takes me some time to get up the courage to set off again, luckily the wierd planes have gone.

10.45 I am still at Al Shifa, having been waylaid by a Press TV reporter wanting to do an interview, but I’ve got into an ambulance ready to head off. Just as it is about to leave, rockets fall either side of the hospital and we retreat hurriedly back under the entrance shelter.

By the time we get to Al Quds the atmosphere is hectic. They have just received three men who were in a car outside a bombed house, I am not clear if one is dying or already dead. We rush another of them to Al Shifa for neurosurgery. Then we are sent off at high speed to emergency calls, through a darkened city full of smoke. Double strikes by Israel happen so often now that the ambulance workers’ stress levels are very high; the medics are doing everything at top speed and shouting at the tops of their voices as they do it. Rubble covers the streets from strikes minutes ago. The familiar smell of rocket fire fills the air, the same smell the grey dead men give off whom we have collected in the last days.

We peer into the darkness for someone watching for us; we spot a young boy who runs back around the corner. He returns with his family, 25 of them, mostly terrified young children. One boy is hopping. The medics run to grab them, shouting what must be the equivalent of “Move, we’ve got to get out of here!” Everyone is shoved into ambulances; a girl of about six is posted through the half open window into my arms. We tear back to the hospital, offloading them into comparative shelter, racing back to collect a father with his daughter of about 8 in his arms, a head trauma case.

Later, I go to see the family of 25, gathered in a room where they have been given blankets and food. There don’t appear to be any serious injuries, though when I hear more that seems a miracle. I ask two articulate and beautiful teenage English speakers from the family, R and S, what their story is. They explain half the family is their aunt and her children, who came to their house because their own was destroyed. R says – “in the last 3 nights, we were hit 13 times the first night, 3 times the next, and tonight 10 times. The 3rd floor was gone, then the second floor, we were just left in the first floor, now there is almost nothing.” They translate the aunt’s words to me – “What is the solution for us? What?” The girls add, “We had no solution from Fatah. No solution from Hamas. We just want peace! Just peace!”

“Where will you go?” I ask them.

“We don’t know.” they say. “We have some other family but they left their house too because Israel threatened to bomb it. We don’t know.”

I hear from E that she was borrowing internet in the Sharuch building tonight, which houses Russia TV, Fox, possibly Reuters, and other press offices, when it was struck 7 times one after the other. She got safely to the ground from the tenth floor, with everyone else, but she says she did think the whole place was going to collapse.

There is confused news through the night of more attacks on mosques and homes throughout Gaza. After the hectic earlier hours, the middle part of the shift is filled by collecting 5 women going into labour; by the 5th call S thinks his dispatcher is joking. I am pleased to be able to smile at our patients. Then S tells me about a 17 year old woman who went into labour yesterday. Her sister-in-law’s 1 year old was killed in the last days in her arms, the bullet continuing on to wound the mother. And her father-in-law is dead, but his body has not been able to be collected.

4am: Behind the two reception desks opposite each other are two families sitting on plastic chairs put in a circle. They are silent. A medic explains that the residential building behind us here at Al Quds has had a bomb threat. These families have evacuated to us here. Others remain in the building.

6am: I speak to EJ in Jabalia on the office phone. I forgot to tell you that the Red Crescent Ambulances again relocated their base, since there was a concern that Karmel Adwan hospital as a government hospital might be a target. So EJ, Mo, and A have done the night shift from the new base of Al Awda hospital. EJ says that at about 5am, 4 ambulances went to collect wounded from a house attack. They returned to get further wounded, again in a convoy of 4, and the Israeli army shelled the house for a second time as soon as they arrived. The medics outside the vans were injured by flying rubble. EJ was inside.

S tells me there was an attack on the Shatr UNWRA School, by Apache he thinks, which killed three UNWRA volunteers helping with the refugees. He is asked to take the ambulance to collect the body parts, as they are near the bathrooms which is distressing for people. But the RC boss says his is the only ambulance on standby so he must wait til others return first.

5pm: We just heard in the last hour that the Al Fakhoura UNWRA School was shelled, we think by tanks, and it is confirmed that 43 members of the same extended family were killed. The UNWRA Schools are sheltering refugees whose homes Israel has already bombed or threatened to bomb. We have also heard a third UNWRA school was attacked earlier but we have no further details yet. I cannot express the anger I am feeling right now.

Our group is holding together but we are feeling the increasing strain of not enough internet access, food, sleep, or hope for an end to this insanity. The numbers of dead have exceeded 570 and the injured have exceeded 2,600.

23 hours in Jabaliya

By Sharon in Gaza
talestotell.wordpress.com

January 4, 6pm – January 5, 5pm

6pm: To Al Awda hospital, run by the Union of Health Work Committees. It normally has a 50 bed capacity but has been stretched to 75. E and Mo interview Ala’a, the medic from Jabalia RC who was injured when Arafa was killed yesterday.

The story goes as follows:

It was about 8.30 am Saturday morning in Jabalia. Five teenagers found themselves under shell attack and tried to get away. Three escaped. One, Tha’er, 19, had his foot blown off. His friend Ali, also 19, tried to pick him up and carry him to safety, but was shot in the head and killed. It took 75- 90 minutes before a Jabalia Red Crescent ambulance could reach them. Medic Arafa, 35, and Ala’a, 22, carried Tha’er to the ambulance, and then went back for Ali’s body. As they closed the van door, they were shelled.

Ala’a says “I felt nothing – just that I was flying in the air and then falling.” Other ambulances evacuated all. Arafa, who was married with 5 children, had a severe chest wound with most of one lung gone and only survived 2 hours. Ali’s head was blown off. Ala’a is now in hospital with severe shrapnel wounds all over, especially chest and legs. Tha’er survived but also now has several lacerations to back and body from shrapel.

Arafa was a teacher for the UN, gave medic training, and volunteered as a medic after being one professionally earlier.

7pm: We arrange to sleep in shifts at Al-Awda hospital. V and I crash. E, A and M hitch a ride with the first RC ambulance that turns up, out to Karmel Adwan hospital, the Red Crescent’s second new base since evacuating their centre. The base is a few blankets in a corridor, but there is tea sometimes.

11pm: E comes back to sleep, V and I ride with O’s ambulance to Karmel Adwan. O has a scarf wrapped round his knee, he was shot there some years ago and has pain in cold weather. I talking A and Mo into going to back to rest, but fail to convince EJ. The night turns out to be quiet. Unfortunately, I soon understand this is because a) a lot of Jabalia people have run away, and b) Israel is not letting the ambulances collected most of the wounded that do call for help.

2pm: we collect a woman in labour. Back at the hospital, I chat to Om, who is a nurse but volunteers at the Al-Assyria Centre that the Union of Health Work Committees runs. Also to M, in a hospital bed. He is 23, six months married, and made the mistake of standing next to the Jabalia mosque that was bombed two days ago. He is now recovering from abdominal surgery.

Everyone has naps in the ambulances. EJ and I are being called hourly by the BBC to contribute to news bulletins, “live from Gaza”.

5am: we hear that there has been a threat to bomb Al Wafa hospital which I understand is a centre for the disabled.

7.15am: we collect a man seriously injured by rocket explosion from a house in Sikha St, Jabalia; I doubt he has more than minutes to live, but he is still alive when we reach the hospital.

9am: An injured woman is having a panic attack. We collect a woman whose home has just been shelled, she is having a panic attack and I am not clear on her injuries. Back at the hospital people are loudly grieving for two recent dead. These may be the nearly dead man my ambulance collected and another I saw arrive, both horribly mangled by rockets and the now-familiar grey colour.

9.30: We hear that Beit Hanoun is almost completely occupied by the Israeli army, as is the nearby small town Zahra which commands the north/south road. The north (us) and the south (F, G, and OJ in Rafah) may now be cut off from each other. We check in by phone, making contingency plans.

10am: Mo’s sister calls to tell him his village of Khosa is being shelled; the farmland in the centre which is surrounded by housing. “There’s nothing there, just people’s homes.” he tells us. He says there are now Israeli tanks in the Attatta and Shaimah areas of Beit Lahia. This is 1km inside the border, and 2km away from us at Jabalia. He says tank invasions used to take main roads, but he expects this time they will do what they did in February; bring in bulldozers and go directly through the houses.

He tells us that today Palestinian phones are receiving recorded messages from the army, saying “To the innocent civilians: our war is not with you, but with Hamas. If they don’t stop launching rockets, you are all going to be in danger.”

11.50: Call to near Gaza beach, turns out to be a mistake. Instead we pick up a family with two little children who are evacuating, sat on the side of the road, worn out from carrying bags. We passed Beit Lahia UNRWA school earlier, it is filling up with refugee families. Like Naher El Bared all over again.

N draws my attention to one more extremely crowded bread queue, and then we discover a young teenage boy in the queue has collapsed from exhaustion; the medics treat him to the extent they can.

4pm: F calls to say they’ve heard Al Awda hospital has been shelled. I ring EJ. She says a structure immediately beside it received two shells; one person was injured, the man who lent her his jacket last night. He has shrapnel to the head and she says he isn’t looking too good. A apparently caught the shelling on his camera. We wonder if we should head back there to be again with Jabalia RC instead of Gaza city RC. But Gaza city lost 3 of their medics yesterday.

Latest:
There have been two separate reports about Israeli attacks on funeral tents. We are trying to confirm deaths and injuries for one. The second of the funerals attacked was medic Arafa’s yesterday afternoon; 5 people were injured.

We have also had reports that in the Zaytoun area two days ago, Israeli soliders rounded up a group of people into two houses; women and children into one, men into the other, where they were kept for two days. Then this morning at 11am Israeli forces shelled the houses. We have heard the number of deaths as between 7 and 20. One was a seven year old boy whose father was interviewed on TV while holding his body. We are trying to find out further details. It is getting very hard to keep up with this insanity.

We asked the Jabalia Red Crescent admin person how much of the emergency calls Israel is not letting them go to. These are in areas where co-ordination must be made with the invading forces via the Red Cross to enter. He said they are not being allowed to attend to about 80% of the calls from the north, covering the Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia area.

Shall I repeat that?
80%.
Eight of ten people calling for help are being prevented from receiving it.

It’s really hard to post from here

By Eva Bartlett
ingaza.wordpress.com

Every time I manage to make it back to Gaza to write for a period, a new calamity.

“They’re shelling Awda hospital,” in Jabaliya, the news reports. Our internationals there at the moment report it was two shells at a police post next to the hospital, one hospital worker getting shrapnel to the head, but surviving.

The numbers slaughtered and injured are so high now – 521 and 3,000 as of this morning, Gaza time – that sitting next to a dead or dying person is becoming normal. The stain of blood on the ambulance stretcher pools next to my coat, the medic warning me my coat may be dirtied. What does it matter? The stain doesn’t revolt me as it would have, did, one week ago. Death fills the air, the streets in Gaza, and I cannot stress that this is no exaggeration.

Back in Gaza city briefly, after a day and night again with the medics, I’ll try to summarize, though there is too much to tell, too much incoming news, and it’s too hard to reach people, even those just a kilometer away. Before dropping me off, the medics had gone to different gas stations, searching for gas for the ambulances. Two stations, no luck. Some at a final source fills their tanks. The absence of gas is critical. So is the absence of bread, which goes on, the lines longer than ever yet.

A text tells me (at this point I have to rely on news from phone and text messages, when reception is available) that the UN says 13,000 have been displaced since these attacks, that 20% of the dead are women and children, 70% are without drinking water. There are many more facts to sober one drunk on apathy, but I can’t source or share them now.

The Israeli army occupied areas in the north, shelled houses, demolishing them, many injuries, dead, many off-limits to the ambulances.

Beit Hanoun is occupied by the Israeli army, which is now controlling the entry points to the northern region, cutting it off. One small, sub-par hospital without an ICU is staggering under the influx of injured from house demolitions, shellings, shootings… Two ambulances serve this region, I don’t have any information on their condition, the amount of petrol they have, or what areas of the Beit Hanoun region are accessible or not.

Entering via an ambulance to take an emergency case to Gaza’s Shifa hospital, I see the Beit Hanoun hospital crammed, with a frenzied air, families desperate to get their injured care…those who have been able to get to the hospital. Mohammed Sultan, 19, stands dazed with a gunshot graze to the back of his head. From Salateen, northwestern Gaza, he had to walk 1 km before a car could reach him and take him here.

The man we transfer to Shifa has been shot in the face. He is about 35, is a civilian, was in or near his house. His face has exploded, and we move as fast as possible over torn up roads, ambulance jarring as we move and as the medics try to administer delicate care. It’s on everyone’s mind that the army is present here, that our safety is not.

Beit Lahia and beyond, in the northwest, are mostly off-limits to ambulances, leaving the wounded and dead where they are. The calls from there for help, for evacuation, have been non-stop and now go ignored.

In Zaytoun, reports have one extended family being separated men from women, locked inside two houses, and the houses shelled a day later (this morning, around 11 am). Bodies are still being pulled and carted to Shifa hospital. Many estimate that as many as 20 were killed, 10s more injured. I will go to Shifa after this to try to confirm numbers, though again the disclaimer that confirmation in these conditions takes time (and working phone lines). Zaytoun area is occupied in parts, making ambulance access again nearly-impossible, if not fully, I don’t know at this point.

I’m told that areas further south have been invaded, shelled, occupied. Like Zahara, and Juhadik in central Gaza. Press TV reporter Yusuf al Helo told me this morning that the reason he hadn’t answered my phone calls last night (he is one of the better sources for up-to-date news) was because his uncle, in the extended Zaytoun area, just off the main Salah el Din street, was killed when Israeli forces shelled their house. “My cousins were in the house too,” he told me, as were many more injured. Over 15 hours after the assault, Yusuf updates me: “until now they still haven’t been able to take the injured and dead out of my uncle’s house.”

Last night, in a Jabaliya hospital, I talk with one nurse who tells us that his brother Adham, an 8 year old, was shot in the neck and in the chest at 4:30 pm that day (January 4th) when on his rooftop in the same northwestern area that ambulances now cannot reach.

Mohammed tells me his village, Khosar, east of Khan Younis was shelled in an agricultural area, one of the many open areas continuing to be pummelled. One of the many areas period: open, residential, market…

Painfully, I learn that after a hasty funeral, Arafa’s mourning tent was shelled yesterday, mourners inside. At least five injuries and much insult.

At 4:37, Haidar updates me that “the house of the El Eiwa family, from Shejaiyee, was attacked. Lots of casualties, including children.”

He updates me on a BBC report: “the one o’clock news on the local BBC channel interviewed a Norwegian doctor in Gaza wo said some of the victims bear traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.”

Israel shells damage al-Awda hospital, Jabaliya

2pm, Al-Awda hospital, Jabaliya, Gaza:
The al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza has been damaged by two Israeli shells.

Two consecutive shells just landed in the busy car park 15 meters from the entrance to the emergency room of the Al Awda hospital. The entrance of the emrgency rooml was damaged. At the time of the shelling Ambulances were bringing in the wounded that keep pouring in. Medical teams and facilities are being targeted. Nowhere is safe. – Alberto Arce (Spain), International Solidarity Movement

This attack on the hospital come the day after four medics were killed by the Israeli military as they attempted to rescue injured people. Six Palestinian medical personnel have now been killed by Israeli attacks.

On December 31st, medic Mohammed Abu Hassera was killed on the spot as his ambulance was shelled while trying to access the wounded. Dr Ihab Al Mathoon, who was also on the ambulance, died in hospital a few hours later. Yesterday, 4th January, Yaser Shbeir, Raf’at Al-A’kluk, Arafa Hani ‘Abdul Dayem and Anes Fadel Na’im were killed when Israeli shells targeted the ambulances they worked in.

Israel has continued to violate international conventions by attacking medical personnel. They are massacring the people of Gaza. With the swelling number of civilian casualties, Israel must ensure that medical assistance is available. Instead, they are intentionally targeting the medical teams that are meant to be protected by the Geneva Conventions. Israel’s disregard for international law must be confronted by the international community. – Vittorio Arrigoni (Italy), International Solidarity Movement

International Solidarity Movement activists are accompanying ambulances in Gaza. They were, and will continue, working with medical personnel during the Israeli Occupation Forces’ ground invasion into northern Gaza.