21st July 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
During the 2012 Zionist massacre in Gaza, named by the occupation as Operation Pillar of Defense, many buildings near Mohamed’s home were bombed. Less than a year after the aggression, while playing with him, Mohamed’s mother found a lump in his neck. At this time he was eight years old.
Mohamed and his mother.
They went to Shifa hospital, where he was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer. There he underwent the first surgery, but the operation was not successful.
After that he was allowed to travel to the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, in order to be treated in the Hospital of Haifa. Where he underwent a second surgery and received radiotherapy, unavailable in Gaza.
Mohamed with visible scars on his neck.
The Palestinian Authority pays the treatment to the Israeli hospital. For this reason, according to Mohamed’s family, the Palestinian Authority tries to prevent every journey of Mohamed from Gaza to Haifa’s hospital.
As Mohamed’s mother says, the Israeli doctors told them that this kind of cancer is due to the bombings near their home. They also told her that in 2016 the cancer rates in Gaza will rise 70% more, and that for the following 4 years it will keep growing.
Since the 2012 aggression Mohamed’s father has developed asthma as well.
The land bombed next to Mohamed’s home.
In 2014 Mohamed’s home was attacked by Zionist warships. Luckily they weren’t at home in this moment.
Mohamed’s family referred ISM to Fatimah, a 50 years old woman, mother of six children, who lives near them.
During the 2008 massacre, a mosque, a government building and a home were bombed next to her house. Four years ago she was diagnosed as well with thyroid cancer.
The home next to Fatima’s that was bombed.
The two oncologists interviewed by ISM in Shifa Hospital and Rantisi Children Hospital, in Gaza, agreed that these kinds of cancer are due to the Zionist bombs, and explained that they were very rare before the massive aggressions against the Gaza Strip.
* The names have been changed, as Mohamed and Fatimah are afraid of losing the permission to leave the Strip to receive the treatment.
10th July 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
No private hospital in Gaza treats cancer, only the public ones, and that the treatment is free of charge.
“At Shifa Oncology Department we treat everyday 150 patients, and we are in total 3 doctors, 5 nurses and have just 15 beds. Obviously that’s not enough.“
Dr. Rami Mokdad
Dr. Rami Mokdad:
“In the last 10 years it has grown a lot the number of patients with cancer in the Gaza Strip. Especially in young people and children, before most of the cases affected old people, but since the Zionist aggressions against Gaza started it became normal to receive children and young people with cancer.
The three kinds of cancer that have grown more in those years are thyroid cancer, leukaemia and multiple myeloma cancer.
For example, in 2005 we had less than 50 cases of thyroid cancer, in 2014 we had 300 cases. Actually we are receiving each month between 70 and 100 new cases of cancer patients. In this oncology department, the most important in the Gaza Strip, we treated in 2010 around 2800 patients. On 2013 the number grew to 5000 and the last year, 2014, we treated around 6000 patients. And I’m afraid these numbers will continue to grow even more. In 10 years we’ll have a huge crisis in Gaza, as the risk factors are getting worst; the use of war weapons by Israel in highly populated areas, the consumptions of polluted water, the use of polluted land for growing food, etc.
Another special case we find in Gaza is the nasopharyngeal cancer, especially in children. Those cases come from areas where the people had primary contact with the Zionist bombs, especially with white phosphorous, but also in cases where their home was bombed.
Due to the blockade we find a lot of difficulties for making the diagnosis and treating those patients. For example in Gaza we don’t have either radiotherapy or molecular therapy, and we find a lot of obstacles to send the patients to the West Bank to receive the appropriate treatment. We also don’t have PET scan, isotope scan or laboratory markers. We also suffer from an important shortage of chemotherapy supplies and other drugs, we could say that we work with the 40% of the supplies we really need. As even when we receive some of these drugs, we don’t receive them continuously, so we never know if the next week we’ll be able to provide the needed treatment to the patients.
The Palestinian Authority is responsible for this shortage of drugs, as they don’t send the supplies intended for Gaza due to its will to punish Hamas.
This attitude from the Ramallah based government, along with the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt that doesn’t allow the patients to leave the Strip in order to receive the treatment outside, and in the case of Egypt, that also doesn’t allow the entrance of medical supplies and drugs through Rafah Border; are responsible of our inability to treat properly the cancer patients from Gaza.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of resources of the local government we don’t have any serious studies addressing the cancer issue. And we don’t know why any of all the International Agencies or NGOs is studying that.”
10th September | Joe Catron | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
On Sunday evening, as the sun slipped behind the Mediterranean Sea, members of the Bakr family, a sprawling clan of fishermen in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp, gathered with hundreds of supporters on the beach next to the Gaza seaport.
Young relatives of four children killed by Israeli shelling while playing football on a beach in July play their game that was violently cut short, 7 September (Joe Catron)
Their assembly commemorated the lives of nine-year-old Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr, ten-year-old Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr, ten-year-old Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr and eleven-year-old Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr.
The Israeli munitions that ended their lives struck the beach directly behind a row of hotels which, in mid-July, housed many of the foreign reporters then present in Gaza.
Along with statements by members of their family and the painting of colorful murals at the site of the boys’ killings, the event also included a football match, intended to complete the one interrupted by the lethal blasts almost two months ago.
“It was never finished,” Bayan al-Zumaili of the Safadi Group, the youth organization that worked with the Bakr family to organize the event, told The Electronic Intifada. “So we decided to complete it with the survivors of the massacre.”
Al-Zumaili, a physician who graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza’s medical school two months ago, volunteered in the surgical department at al-Shifa hospital during Israel’s 51-day offensive against the Gaza Strip, which ended in an indefinite ceasefire on 26 August.
The killings of the Bakr boys in July drew broad attention not only because a single incident caused the deaths of four young relatives — a scenario repeated numerous times throughout the onslaught — but also because it took place so near to where so many journalists were staying.
Eyewitness accounts of the massacre by journalists like Sara Hussein of AFP, Peter Beaumont of The Guardian, Tyler Hicks of The New York Times, and William Booth of The Washington Post reached much larger audiences than first-hand reports of similar mass killings elsewhere.
On twitter
NBC briefly pulled from the Gaza Strip its correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who tweeted: “Minutes before they were killed by our hotel, I was kicking a ball with them.” NBC’s removal of their star foreign correspondent was attributed by many to his blunt coverage of Palestinian deaths on social media and was widely criticized by other journalists.
While many reporters witnessed the killings, some also helped evacuated three survivors from the beach and gave them first aid inside al-Deira hotel.
“They targeted us knowing that we were children, playing a game of football on the beach,” one survivor of Israel’s missile strikes, eleven-year-old Motasem Bakr, said Sunday. “The [armed] resistance was on the frontiers fighting them, not here playing football.”
“An Israeli officer did not like the idea of children playing,” he added.
“Israeli forces continue to target and kill children and civilians on a daily basis, making Israeli military statements claiming that these deaths are tragic mistakes simply meaningless,” DCI-Palestine executive director Rifat Kassis said in a statement the next day. “The death toll among children now stands at its highest point in five years.”
Along with two other survivors of the attack, Motasem joined three other boys from the Bakr family and six others from the devastated Shujaiya neighborhood, on the eastern edge of Gaza City, to complete the football match they had never finished on 16 July.
“In the place of the martyrs who couldn’t attend, we brought survivors of the Shujaiya massacre to complete the match for them,” al-Zumaili said.
Since the 26 August ceasefire, hard-hit areas like Shujaiya, Beit Hanoun and Khuzaa have at times resembled army encampments; their streets thick with tents erected by grieving families to host mourners and those offering their condolences.
As families mourn their losses, and injured Palestinians succumb to their injuries, Gaza’s ongoing process of collective grieving will also continue, sometimes in the somber reflection of mourning tents, sometimes in the simple joy of an evening football match on the beach.
1st August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Updated August 5th:
International volunteers, along with ISM activists, are continuing to stay in al-Shifa hospital four days after it was threatened to be bombed by the Israeli military.
“From experience, we cannot trust the Israeli military to not attack during this ceasefire. Temporary ceasefire or not, we take the threat against al-Shifa seriously and we will remain inside the hospital until we’re no longer needed.” Stated Fred Ekblad, Swedish ISM activist in al-Shifa Hospital.
After the hospital received a threat by phone, they evacuated all staff and patients inside the threatened building, and were forced to move them back into the main site, although it is already near capacity with wounded men, women, and children. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, as of August 4th, 1865 Palestinians have been killed and a further 9536 have been wounded.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on August 2nd that at least five hospitals and 34 clinics had been forced to shut down due to damage or continuing hostilities in the immediate area. At least 15 medical and emergency staff have been killed in the line of duty, and dozens have been injured.
*******
Al-Shifa hospital has received a phone call telling them a building of the hospital will be bombed.
At 16:30, the hospital received a call from an unlisted number, stating a building needed to be evacuated immediately.
The building is being used for overflow patients, and is directly across the road from the main hospital building. It is part of the hospital site, but building work has yet to be completed.
The hospital is now in the process of evacuating all staff and patients inside.
“I’d like to say that Israel’s threats to bomb Gaza’s largest hospital have reached a new low, but in light of it’s relentless atrocities and civilian massacres over the last 25 days, it’s hardly unexpected.” Stated Joe Catron, U.S. International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist now in al-Shifa hospital.
Since July 25th, international volunteers from countries including Spain, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia, and Venezuela have begun a constant protective presence in various locations at the al-Shifa Hospital.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, as of July 29th, there have been 34 attacks against Gazan medical facilities since this latest Israeli military assault began 25 days ago.
31st July 2014 | Gaza Ministry of Health | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Gaza hospitals are operating under impossible conditions, with surgery now being performed in corridors and on the floor due to the sheer numbers of wounded from massacres such as Shati park, UNRWA school and Shujeiyah market.
Surgery in the corridors (photo by Gaza Ministry of Health).
Lack of theatre space sees two persons being operated on at a time in the same theatre, while others receive surgical interventions in the corridors.
Even beds are in such short supply that surgeons are forced to undertake complicated procedures while their patients lie on stretchers on the floor.
There is nowhere to send the patients post-operatively, with Shifa ICU full, and no vacant beds in surgical wards. Some surgical cases have been sent to maternity and internal medicine hospitals, and to other hospitals outside Shifa medical complex.
Despite 30 patients being ready for discharge, they literally have nowhere to go. These 30 beds are desperately needed.
Performing surgery on the floor of the corridor (photo by Gaza Ministry of Health).
Wards are full to overflowing, with patients lying on mattresses in the corridors. It has deteriorated to the extent that patients have even been sharing beds, and others are being discharged prematurely.
In many cases no patient notes are being recorded contemporaneously or files created because the staff just cannot take the time away from treating the high volume of patients. Some details are being recorded afterwards, but this is less than ideal.
These conditions are a recipe for disaster.
Infection control is well-nigh impossible, and post-operative complications including death will be inevitable.
Deaths are already occurring from a lack of timely treatment, as the numbers of patients far exceed the capacity of the staff. We estimate that we have a 50% shortfall in staff numbers to deal with the case loads presenting for treatment, resulting in some patients receiving suboptimal care and others receiving none at all.
Current staff are as overburdened as the facilities they serve, working without pay for 24 hours on a day-on, day-off roster. All surgeons and surgical staff have been recalled, to cope with the sheer numbers. They are suffering enormous stress, not only from lack of rest, the horrendous injuries they are dealing with and the under-resourced conditions under which they work, but also due to constant fear for their families, and fear of attack as hospitals have increasingly become targets of Israeli fire.
The Ministry of Health Gaza calls for:
The UN, ICRC and other international NGOs to provide as a matter of urgency safe and hygienic shelters for the discharge of displaced patients to free up desperately-needed hospital beds;
the borders to be opened immediately to enable the entry of urgently-required medical teams and equipment to alleviate the workloads; and
the international community to take immediate and concrete action to reign in the unfettered Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
