UNICEF: Gaza’s hospitals are “war zones” where children bleed out on the floor
A veteran UNICEF aid worker recounts in harrowing detail a recent visit to a Gaza hospital, where he saw very young children bleeding out on the floor, writhing from burns and shrapnel embedded in their flesh, and dying on the surgeon’s table.
Photographs: ARCHIVE: © UNICEF/Rawan Eleyan
UN aid teams on Friday described the chilling conditions inside makeshift Gaza hospitals, where the cries of premature babies deprived of oxygen echo through the wards, as doctors work around the clock to try to save children who survived airstrikes on tent encampments or were shot by quadcopter drones while venturing out in search of bread.
Speaking from the war-ravaged enclave amid Israel’s ongoing military offensive to seize full control of Gaza City, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder described a brief yet nightmarish visit to a hospital where children were suffering—or dying—everywhere he turned.
Among the patients treated at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, was Aya, a six-year-old girl wounded in an airstrike.
“What struck me most was not only the wound, but the care visible in her hair—the love her parents had poured into her before the strike,” he said. “As we spoke with the surgeon, she died on the bed in front of us. That was within 30 minutes in one hospital.”
No Space to Move
At the same hospital, Elder said he saw three children “all shot by quadcopters,” four-rotor attack drones, amid persistent reports of people being wounded while seeking assistance at controversial, non-UN aid distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The hospital “is a war zone”: a child shot at the Foundation was bleeding out on the floor, alongside others suffering gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, or burns.
The UNICEF spokesperson underscored reports indicating that 1,000 babies have died in Gaza over the past two years since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel ignited the war. “We have no idea how many more have died from preventable diseases,” he added.
After nearly two years of Israeli military operations across the Strip, only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain open and partially functional. They are “absolutely packed” with people in need of care, Elder stressed.
Rescued, Terrified
“I turn around and see a little girl, Sham, who had just been pulled from the rubble; she’s covered in dust and smoke, terror on her face, in the arms of an aunt or an uncle (…) Sham had no broken bones or internal injuries, but no one had told her that her mother and sister were killed in that attack.”
He continued: “There are first-time mothers and vulnerable newborns lying on the floor—hospital corridors. I sat with three premature babies sharing a single oxygen source. They share it for 20 minutes each; the other two cry while the third receives that oxygen for 20 minutes.”
The notion of a “safe zone” is a farce
In Gaza City, the veteran UN aid worker emphasized that thousands remain unable to leave, amid ongoing Israeli evacuation orders and airstrikes that have left children “shaking” and looking to the sky “to track the fire” from helicopters and quadcopters.
“There are barefoot children pushing their grandparents through the rubble; amputee children struggling forward in the dust; mothers carrying exhausted children, literally with skin bleeding from the severity of rashes,” Elder continued, warning of “ongoing indiscriminate attacks in densely populated civilian areas, despite official statements.”
Elder said “the notion of a safe zone in the south is a farce. Bombs fall from the sky with a ‘chilling’ predictability.”
Another aid worker killed
On Thursday, the medical NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) confirmed the killing in Gaza of its 14th staff member, occupational therapist Omar Hayek, in an attack that also injured four of his colleagues in Deir al-Balah.
Until 13 September he had worked in an MSF clinic in Gaza City before finally being evacuated amid “relentless attacks and forced displacements by Israeli forces,” the NGO said.
“People are afraid—and with good reason (…) If you ask me now whether we can do our job, I will tell you no—of course we cannot do our work in the north,” said Rik Peeperkorn, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The level of violence in Gaza is such that no place is safe, including field hospitals, which offer no protection against stray bullets, said Christian Cardon of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“We have had several cases of people who were wounded, transferred to the hospital and, while receiving treatment, were injured again by stray bullets that entered the hospital,” he said, noting another similar incident on Thursday.
With reporting from the United Nations.
