dver the past year, we have witnessed extreme violence against civilians in Gaza. In recent months we have traveled to Gaza to support the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams there, and visited the “humanitarian zone”, declared safe by Israel, which nevertheless attacks it regularly.
On November 13, a projectile fell 250 meters from our clinic, without prior warning. Almost 1.5 million people, forcibly displaced, were forced go to the humanitarian zone and survive there in great precariousness. If possible, our colleagues in the North tell us of an even worse situation.
Since the beginning of October, the population of the Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya and Beit Lahya districts in northern Gaza have been subject to one of the most violent attacks since the start of the war. The Israeli army bombs entire neighborhoods, increasing the massacres, while issuing evacuation orders that are impossible to follow. Many of those trying to flee have been bombed or shot, while others were arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned.
Our colleagues and their families are direct and helpless witnesses of the ferocity of the offensive. They are afraid of dying and rightly so.
On October 10, our colleague Nasser Hamdi Abdelatif Al Shalfouh was killed by shrapnel. On October 14, an MSF physiotherapist and his son were injured. On October 24, Hasan Suboh, an MSF employee, was killed in an Israeli attack on the building where he worked in Khan Younes. In total, eight of our colleagues have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Minimal humanitarian aid
After two weeks of total siege, in early October, Israel allowed a few humanitarian trucks to enter northern Gaza. This pales in comparison to the amount of help that would be needed.
In early October, Israeli forces laid siege to the area’s three main hospitals, the Indonesian Hospital, Al-Awda and Kamal-Adwan, where there were hundreds of patients. On October 19, an MSF doctor, who had taken refuge in Kamal-Adwan hospital, described the disastrous situation in the besieged structure, overwhelmed by patients and lacking medical equipment. Between October 25 and 28, and again in early November, the hospital was attacked by Israeli forces, who also arrested and detained dozens of medical workers, including Dr. Mohammed Obeid, one of our colleagues.
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