I have never been in a situation like this. I have experienced emergency situations, but they lasted 6, 12, 24 hours. In Gaza the emergency is continuous. We are running out of words to denounce that the situation in Gaza is catastrophic.
In the northern area, people do not even have access to basic care; They die for any reason, for any disease. In the central zone, the situation is worsening day by day. On January 6, we were forced to evacuate Al-Aqsa Hospital, where we had been working for more than a month, after Israeli forces issued evacuation orders for the neighborhoods surrounding the hospital.
The day before the evacuation, a projectile landed in the intensive care unit. The day we decided to evacuate, the area located right in front of the hospital, just 150 meters away, had an evacuation order. The situation was becoming absolutely unsafe for all staff. Drone attacks, sniper fire and shelling in the vicinity of the hospital made the space too unsafe to work in.
A few days later, the national staff of the Ministry of Health made the same decision for safety reasons, and most patients left the hospital because it was too unsafe.
In the south, the situation is catastrophic for many other reasons. In an area of ??just a few square kilometers, more than one and a half million people are crowded in search of refuge. They are taking shelter in absolutely chaotic areas, using plastic tents to protect themselves from the rain or the cold that it is at this time. Winter has arrived in Gaza bringing new challenges for more than 1.9 million displaced people. Temperatures can drop to around 9-10°C at night and for those living in tents the situation is especially serious. People resort to burning pallets in the street to fight the cold.
There is no human way to satisfy all needs. There is no way to provide enough food, there is not enough water. The few hospitals in the south are completely overcrowded and there is absolutely no access to medical care.
More help needs to come into Gaza. Lack of everything. Every day new displaced people arrive trying to find space to build new tents. In the Strip, even simple planks of wood can save lives. I know it may seem strange, but they are essential for building new beds and these are essential for the postoperative period. Having more beds means making room for new patients. Wood is also needed to make crutches so that patients, who otherwise would not be able to move, can leave hospitals. Space is the biggest problem; there is never enough.
The number of trucks that enter Gaza every day is insignificant, they are nothing to be able to provide humanitarian aid. At this time, the help that all organizations are providing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean of needs. What is happening in Gaza, what Doctors Without Borders and the other organizations present here are doing, cannot be called humanitarian action. It is a small help in the midst of a crisis of a magnitude that no one has seen before. No one has ever seen a situation like this.
I can’t stop thinking about the six-year-old son of a fellow Doctors Without Borders driver. A month ago, his house was bombed at night. The boy was sleeping. He woke up in the hospital after several days. Unfortunately, a part of the roof collapsed and hit him on the head.
After a month, he still cannot move one side of his body. After a few days, she has walked again, but cannot speak. She can’t anymore. The way she expresses herself with a smile moves you deeply. You see that she would like to talk, that she would like to have a normal life again, but unfortunately she can’t. But all she does is smile, and she breaks your heart.
Enrico Vallaperta is an Italian intensive care nurse, from Verona, who works with Doctors Without Borders (MSF). He has participated in several missions in different countries, such as Iraq, Syria or Ukraine (where he coordinated the MSF medical train). In 2021 he was responsible for emergency nursing activities in Gaza.
