GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, denied allegations circulated in international media, about the delivery of medical aid to the hospital, stressing that it is still under Israeli siege.
Abu Safiya said in press statements on Monday, “After four-weeks-long waiting for allowing the World Health Organization to enter food, medicine and specialized medical delegations to the hospital, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) emptied the ambulances loaded with food in the street and forced the medical delegation to return back.”
He added that the IOF allowed the entry of only seven out of 40 boxes of medical supplies.
Abu Safiya stressed that the hospital loses numbers of the wounded every day as they die of their wounds due to the lack of surgical specialties, noting that cases of malnutrition from children flock to the hospital with “four of them with critical health conditions. We started monitoring a number of adults suffering from malnutrition,” he said.
The director of Kamal Adwan stressed that the hospital is still providing medical service at the minimum capacity, saying “We have only pediatricians to perform surgeries despite being not specialized in general surgeries, just to save the lives of the injured.”
“We receive daily distress calls, but we cannot help them. There is no single ambulance or civil defense crew operating in northern Gaza, which is subject to Israeli siege, where people are denied access to water, food, and medicine. No new surgeons are allowed to enter the hospital after the arrest of the surgical teams,” he added.
The situation was deteriorated in the Kamal Adwan Hospital after the IOF bombed its upper floors, and arrested most of its medical cadres late month, with only two doctors remaining inside the hospital with a few nursing staff.
Doctor Abu Safiya revealed that the hospital received on Sunday a distress call from women and children under the rubble who probably died as the medical teams could not help them.
For the 45th day, northern Gaza has been under an Israeli tight siege, starvation and enforced displacement amid violent air and artillery shelling, and a complete isolation of the northern province from Gaza, in an operation described by international and UN organizations as a crime that amounts to the crime of ethnic cleansing.
