By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

A MSF nurse in Gaza City said, “We are going through very difficult times due to the siege, poverty, and starvation.”

The situation in the Gaza Strip has been described as catastrophic by a nurse working with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the besieged enclave.

“The current situation in Gaza is catastrophic and words can’t describe it,” Loay Harb said in an audio clip posted by MSF on X on Saturday.

Speaking from Gaza City, in northern Gaza, Harb said “We do not have electricity, water or connection,” which has created “a lot of instability for people here.”

“The current situation in Gaza is catastrophic and words can’t describe it.”

In rare contact with one of our staff members in northern #Gaza, MSF nurse Loay Harb describes the situation there, including the lack of food and the medical support he provides where he can. pic.twitter.com/7QPldoFavu

— MSF International (@MSF) March 16, 2024

He explained that there is no flour and no way of communicating with the world.

“We are going through very difficult times, due to the siege, poverty, and starvation,” he added.

Harb, one of four remaining MSF staffers in Gaza City, goes to Al-Shifa Hospital daily on a voluntary basis, along with another nurse.

He said the medical situation of patients “is complex,” with crowds of displaced people inside the hospital who “make it difficult for us at the hospital to do our job.”

Crowds of Displaced

“Some patients are put on the floor. There are not enough beds and spaces to receive the huge number of patients,” the nurse explained.

Harb is also working at the MSF clinic daily and said, “I still receive some patients with burns and war wounds to provide basic healthcare with the minimum capacities that we have here.”

Some patients have difficulty reaching the clinic to continue their treatment because the roads are destroyed, he continued.

“So, I prepare dressing kits for them, and I guide them on how to change them.”

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Systematic Targeting

Since October 7, Israeli forces have systematically targeted health care facilities, ambulances, and access roads.

Israel arrested health care workers, prevented fuel from entering the besieged Strip, and withheld critical medical and surgical supplies.

All of this was intended to undermine Gaza’s healthcare system.

“Israel systematically targets the Gaza Strip’s health system, forcing most hospitals and health centers to shut down entirely,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement on Thursday.

“Large numbers of new patients have been documented over the past five months, but because of the breakdown of the Strip’s governmental and administrative institutions, have not been officially added to the health system database to receive the follow-up treatments they require,” it added.

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Over 31,500 Killed

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 31,553 Palestinians have been killed, and 73,546 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

‘Hospitals Must Not be Attacked’ – WHO Chief on Israel’s Siege of Nasser Hospital

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’

(The Palestine Chronicle)