Amputations without anaesthetic, donkeys carting patients to hospitals and silent death in a land free of food - this is Gaza today, said the head of the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
With his emergency responders under mortal attack and not a grain of rice nor vial of medicine now entering Gaza, the Red Crescent chief said life in the blockaded territory was the toughest it had ever been in nearly 19 months of war.
“It is not normal for us to live like this,” Younis Al-Khatib told Context. “We are talking about a silent death here.”
Al-Khatib said he was now fearful of despatching his staff to distress calls after 15 paramedics and rescue workers were gunned down in three separate shootings near Rafah city on March 23.
The bodies were buried in a shallow grave and found a week later by officials from the United Nations and Red Crescent, who said Israeli troops killed the aid workers.
On April 20, the Israeli military said a review into the killings found there had been “several professional failures” and that a commander would be dismissed over the incident.
Al-Khatib said he saw a member of the Red Crescent talk to colleagues after “the boys” were killed.
“What he said was: ‘We believed in this path, so we must walk it. We believed in these principles, and we have to live up to them. No one tell me you want to go back.’”
Al-Khatib said food, medicine and fuel had all but run out since Israel cut supplies to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents on March 2. Medics now use kitchen chemicals to clean their scalpels; horse-pulled carts act as ambulances.
This is the longest-ever blockade of the territory, where more than 51,400 people have been killed since Israel started its offensive in October 2023 after Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking 251 hostage.
Context spoke to Al-Khatib in Beirut.
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The lack of respect towards the (Red Crescent) symbol and for the lives of people who work in the humanitarian field is one of the biggest challenges we are facing. Our second greatest challenge is the blockade Gaza is enduring.
Younis Al-Khatib, head, Palestine Red Crescent Society
How has the killing of your staff affected operations?
We train our people to preserve their lives: If there is danger somewhere, I need you alive, not dead. But we are facing a rival that does not care about these things.
Sometimes the price of that is not being able to provide the required service. If there are bombings in the area, we might not go in. If we lose contact with an ambulance, then I might not send a second car or a third.
Now our guys will not move normally, even in areas that do not have military operations. No statement or declaration from the occupation army will be taken with blind trust. The area they (the paramedics) were in was not an area witnessing military operations, and it was not an area considered by the Israeli military as a red zone.
What is the biggest challenge you face in Gaza?
The lack of respect towards the (Red Crescent) symbol and for the lives of people who work in the humanitarian field is one of the biggest challenges we are facing.
Our second greatest challenge is the blockade Gaza is enduring. For the past two months, not a single pill has entered Gaza, not a single grain of rice.
How is that affecting your work?
Throughout the entire war, we have not witnessed a time as difficult as this one. Around 60 per cent to 70 per cent of our ambulances are no longer operational due to a lack of fuel. We have very minimal fuel left for the rest; we are talking about days here.
We have had a lot of cases where patients had to be moved in carts being towed by donkeys or horses. This is happening across Gaza, there are absolutely no means of transport.
In hospitals, there are operations that are being done without anaesthesia, especially amputations. A lot of medicines are missing, and a lot of people with chronic diseases are not able to find them.
We are talking about a silent death here.
How are you trying to adapt?
When there is no fuel or anaesthesia, the medical crews are trying to find any alternative that (they) can work with. Even when it comes to sterilisation, they use Dettol if they can find it, or they try and use any chemicals they can get from their kitchens.
But this is not how you run medical operations. When you have wounded people come in and there is bombing around them, this is not normal. The issue here is why is the world allowing the targeting of these medical centres?
It is not normal for us to live like this and try and find a way to survive. What is normal is for the world to force the Israelis to respect the humanity of Palestinians and the symbol of the Palestine Red Crescent.
How are the emergency workers able to continue their jobs?
Some of them work 16 or 17 continuous hours. How?
Is it a sense of belonging? Is it survival instinct? Is it principles? Or is it a combination of all these things that creates a new type of human?
This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit https://www.context.news/.
