Reportage
With the truce, Gaza treats its children wounded by the bombardments
Audio 01:23
Palestinian doctors at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, August 6, 2022. © MAHMUD HAMS/AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
In Gaza, life resumes only in appearance, despite the truce that came into effect Sunday, August 7 in the evening, after a new outbreak of violence between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
There are 46 dead on the Palestinian side, with civilians, including children, a toll denied by Israel, and significant destruction in the impoverished enclave under blockade.
Some have lost everything.
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With our special correspondent in Gaza,
Alice Froussard
At al-Shifa hospital, many children on the beds are awaiting operations or transfers to a hospital outside the coastal enclave.
Families rush to their side, trying to comfort them, feeling sorry for the situation and the shortages at the hospital.
Half of his body is hidden under a blanket and his two legs completely covered with bandages.
On this hospital bed, Ismail Sabbah, 11 years old, seriously injured: “
My feet and my legs hurt me a lot.
We were praying before going outside to play with my friends when we were targeted by a bombardment.
Someone saved us, evacuated us… he took us by car to a first hospital and then we were transferred here.
»
Lack of material
With each movement, Ismail writhes in pain, he hopes to be released from the hospital in a week, but according to the doctors, everything will depend on his future operation.
By his side, his grandmother, who prays that everything goes as planned, that Ismail returns to school within the year, and his uncle, Sakher Sabbah, who worries about the lack of means of the hospital: “
We hope that the hospital will be able to provide him with all the care he needs, that we will give him medication continuously.
We can't afford to buy them outside, even if it's me, or his father, or someone else, it's so expensive, we can't afford it... and we don't know. not how long, it will take.
God only knows when he will be healed…
”
Already, in normal times, the main hospital in Gaza lacks everything: space, equipment, intensive care beds and medicines, "
but with this influx of wounded in recent days
, says a doctor,
the situation is dramatic
".
♦ End of the bombardments, but a future still blocked
Meanwhile, there were people on Tuesday afternoon on the Gaza beach: families with children, teenagers, older people.
The inhabitants confide that after three days locked up this weekend with the bombardments, the fear, the stress, this outing is like a breath of fresh air, a semblance of freedom.
Pretending, because everyone talks to us about the blockade that has lasted for 15 years, about the catastrophic economic situation.
A street vendor tells us he can't find another job.
A fisherman talks about how he can't repair his boat because of materials banned from export by Israel and explains that he can't fish as far as he would like.
A young graduate in mathematics explains for her part that she would like another future for her children.
Others talk about their lack of hope in the face of reconstruction.
And after the three days of bombardment, everyone is asking the same question: until when can we live here?
“But it's impossible to leave” confide the inhabitants, “and even so, where would we go?
»
►Also read: On the first day of truce, Gazans lick their wounds and mourn their dead
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Gaza
Israel
Palestinian territories
Health and medicine