The medical team at the Al Awda hospital, the last operation in northern Gaza, issued a cry for help this Tuesday: If they do not receive supplies in 48 hours, the center will stop working. This was explained in a press conference from inside the center by its acting director, Mohammed Salha, who read a statement calling for the urgent shipment of “medicines and consumables, medical supplies and diesel.”
“As always happens in times of crisis and emergencies, and since the beginning of the aggression; Al Awda decided to continue providing health and services to its community despite all the challenges, obstacles, difficulties and dangerous conditions to which its staff and facilities,” Salha assured.
Since the start of the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the hospital has received numerous attacks. “As part of its systematic policy of disrupting the health system, the occupation has deliberately attacked the Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza through direct threats to close the hospital, and then attacked the hospital with direct shelling and destroying departments, operating rooms, solar energy, water and diesel warehouses, medicine warehouses, transport vehicles, ambulances and supplies. Not only that, but he laid siege to the hospital for 18 days and, as a result, 12 employees and volunteers were injured, 7 members of his personnel were martyred and the director of the hospital, Dr. Ahmad Muhanna and three members of the medical staff were arrested and their fate remains unknown at this time,” the statement explains.
Despite the evacuation order for all of northern Gaza issued in October by the Israeli army, many of the center’s staff decided to stay due to the impossibility of evacuating all the wounded. Since then, about 240 people, including medical personnel, patients and their families, live in the center.
Mohammed Salha, a community activist who was at the center as a volunteer, took over as director of the center after the arrest of Dr. Muhanna and has been informing La Vanguardia about the situation at the center since the beginning of the Israeli bombings.
Salha has been denouncing for months the precarious situation of the hospital, which, apart from caring for the sick and injured, is the only maternity hospital in the north where pregnant women can go to give birth.
“Since the beginning of the aggression, Al Awda Hospital has worked to rely on its strategic reserve to maintain the sustainability of its services to citizens in northern Gaza following the disruption and attacks on all government hospitals,” the center denounces in the statement. “However, all these measures have failed.” they alert.
“The complete cessation of services at Al Awda hospital will result in the complete deprivation of basic health services for the citizens of northern Gaza because all hospitals are out of service,” they said at the press conference.
“Al Awda Health and Community Association calls on the rest of the free world and all international, humanitarian and human rights organizations to put pressure on the occupier to supply the hospital with medicines and consumables, medical supplies and diesel, as Al Awda hospital can no longer
perform the services of the operations, radiology and laboratory departments. In addition, reception and emergency services and maternity services are at risk of being completely suspended for the next forty-eight hours,” they say.
At least half a million Palestinians remain trapped in northern Gaza, where there is still intense fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas militants. The UN has warned this month that the humanitarian aid reaching the area is “insufficient” and that there is a risk of “famine.” According to the United Nations, the last time UNRWA was able to send humanitarian aid to the north was on January 23, more than a month ago.
