Bodies of martyrs of an Israeli bombing inside the European Hospital (Reuters)

French doctor Pascal Andre, a specialist in infectious diseases, recently returned to his homeland after spending less than two weeks at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, to narrate the tragic conditions that Palestinians are experiencing, in light of the collapse of the health care system and the spread of epidemics.

Andre said - in an interview with the French newspaper La Croix - that the conditions in the European Hospital in Khan Yunis are very deteriorating, as the surgery department designed for 40 patients includes 110 people, noting that the displaced people who have been there for weeks refuse to go out to the tents because they feel terrified of the Israeli bombing.

According to Andre, about 25,000 displaced people live in the vicinity of the European Hospital and inside its buildings.

The French doctor said that families live in hospital corridors, inside halls and even inside treatment rooms, and are forced to hang curtains to ensure their space of privacy.

He pointed out that the family of one of the nurses was sleeping inside the toilet.

Harsh conditions

He continued that people are living in difficult health conditions, as most of them have been wearing the same clothes for months.

Lacking money to buy wood, they use junction boxes and burn them to cook food.

Regarding the situation of the health system in the Gaza Strip, Andre said that doctors cannot work in good conditions due to the absence of security and the continued terror due to drones flying at a height of 300 meters above their heads, and they know that they will receive new dead and wounded along with their shocked families after hearing the sound of explosions.

Lacroix quoted Andre as saying that people lack all the necessities of life, as the limited aid that is allowed to enter through the Rafah crossing is not sufficient to meet the population’s requirements.

The few trucks that cross the border currently have to spend the night surrounded by guards because hunger drives people to throw themselves on the trucks.

Famine and diseases

Andre describes the current situation in the south of the Strip as better compared to the north, where the minimum necessities of life are absent, and famine strikes severely.

Andre drew attention to the absence of bathrooms and the destruction of sanitation, noting the absence of safe water and the spread of diseases, most notably hepatitis, warning that once the weather temperature rises, cholera may spread.

Lacroix stressed that Israel is doing its utmost to cause indirect deaths, as the collapse of the health system means that patients suffering from chronic diseases cannot receive their treatment, such as dialysis patients, diabetics, cancer patients, and heart patients, and this clearly means their death.

Andre quoted an anesthesiologist in the operating room as saying: “Here, I am treating this patient, but inside me I wonder where we will sleep this evening, me and my four daughters. I lost my wife and son. I do not know where we will sleep if Rafah is attacked.”

At the European Hospital, doctors perform between 40 and 50 emergency interventions daily without cleaning patients, which leads to post-surgical complications with infections.

In addition, the doctors in the organization are supported by assistants who left other hospitals in the Strip after they were bombed or closed, as well as volunteers who do not belong to the health sector but have learned everything on the job in a few months since the beginning of the war.

Andre stressed that throughout his stay he did not see a single weapon, nor did they receive any wounded militants, and therefore the Israeli narrative that claims that doctors treat fighters should be questioned.

The French doctor explained that Israeli snipers shoot adults in the heads and target children's legs so that they cannot play again.

He called for an end to the massacres in the Gaza Strip and an immediate ceasefire, and expressed his admiration for the word “Praise be to God,” uttered by the pained lips of those still alive despite the horror of the situation and the continued mourning for the victims.

Source: Lacroix