myIn June, I traveled to Doha, Qatar, to speak with Palestinian patients and family members evacuated from Gaza. The medical professionals who treated them told us that these were the most complex trauma cases they had ever seen.
Other countries, such as France, with strong and sophisticated health systems and the necessary capacities, should welcome Palestinians from Gaza who cannot receive the care they need in Gaza or Egypt. This is a humanitarian imperative.
In the more than ten months of Israeli military campaign in Gaza, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 93,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Gaza’s health system is on the verge of collapse: only 16 of 36 hospitals are still partially functioning, there is a serious lack of medicines and fuel and 500 health workers have died.
Evacuated to Qatar
Despite the Israeli military’s allegations that Hamas has established bases in hospitals, there is no evidence to justify stripping these healthcare facilities and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law.
In Doha, I met Malak Shahin, a Palestinian from Gaza, who told me how an explosion hit the building next door to where she was sheltering with her family on October 11, 2023. It took rescuers forty minutes to find her daughter. Shahad, 17, was unconscious. Malak Shahin’s son, a doctor, performed cardiac massage on her. “For at least ten minutes, but it was useless”according to Malak.
“The paramedics wrapped her body to prepare it for the funeral and we took her to bury her. I opened the lid to see her one last time and then I saw her eyes open and heard her make a noise.” Shahad was resuscitated and evacuated to Qatar, where she is being treated for severe memory loss and significant brain damage.
Shahad is one of 470 wounded people in Gaza who are in Doha receiving high-level specialist care. I also met Jehad Arafat, a 29-year-old artist, who took refuge in a school near Nasser Hospital in Gaza in February. He had gone out to fetch water when a sniper shot him from above. “Suddenly I realized that my right leg had gone over my left shoulder. » He says the shooter continued to target people trying to help him. Eventually, a friend threw him a rope and dragged him to safety and then transported him to Nasser Hospital.
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