Three major hospitals in northern Gaza – the Indonesian Hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital, and Al-Quds Hospital – found themselves under Israeli fire on Friday, November 3. The Palestinian Red Crescent also reported attacks on a convoy of their vehicles returning from Rafah, where they had transported patients to be transferred to Egypt.
The aftermath of the attacks added dozens more to the devastating death toll tracked by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which now stands at more than 9,000 people. Those killed and injured in the attacks include patients who were supposed to be transported from Al-Shifa to Rafah, health workers, and journalist Haitham Hararah.
Shortly after the attacks in the proximity of the Indonesian Hospital, volunteers told the People’s Health Dispatch that movement inside the building was limited and people were sheltering because of tremors caused by the ongoing bombardments.
By the beginning of November, 14 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza were not operational due to the ongoing attack by the Israeli occupying forces and the full siege of the strip, stated the World Health Organization (WHO) office in the occupied Palestinian territories. This includes the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only institution providing oncology care in Gaza. Al-Shifa, Al-Quds, and Indonesian Hospital were already on the brink before Friday’s attacks. Combined, the three hospitals provide shelter to approximately 65,500 people who had been displaced by the end of October: more than half of all of the population seeking refuge in health facilities on November 2.
All three are also out of essential medical supplies and counting the last drops of fuel needed to run generators. Hours after Al-Shifa was hit in the airstrike, its main generator stopped working, plunging the hospital in darkness and endangering patients’ lives. This includes patients on ventilators, as well as babies in incubators. For days, health workers in the hospital have been treating patients in the hallways, with tens of thousands of people surround them. Even before Al-Shifa’s main generator stopped working, Indonesian Hospital had already switched to backups in order to keep up with intensive care support.
Watch: End to the occupation needed to fulfil right to health in Palestine
In the weeks preceding the attacks, Israel had issued evacuation warnings to all three hospitals which were hit today. The orders were met with disbelief by the medical personnel, as there is no safe way to transport the patients, nor is there a safe place to take them to. Seeing that Israeli authorities did not have a problem with attacking healthcare in Palestine before October 7, the warnings might have been just a formality, anyway. In fact, Israeli attacks on health centers and hospitals, just like those on schools and mosques, are everything but collateral, unintentional damage.
Israel has assaulted healthcare in Palestine throughout the years, in the conscious attempt to drain Palestinian society of basic needs and break the resistance. It has repeatedly targeted hospitals, primary health care centers, ambulance services, and health workers. This included both physical attacks like the ones the world witnessed on Friday, and administrative attacks like the ones that led to the bans of health committees that ensured the provision of primary care on grassroots, largely volunteer basis.
The creation of the health committees corresponded to the recognition of the political importance that health holds in the struggle for a free Palestine: the building of an independent network of health services was and remains an integral part of the liberation movement. Incessant attacks on health infrastructure in Gaza, in addition to being true acts of terror, are also an attempt to stifle such a movement. Yet, despite the attempts, the health workers of Palestine are not bulging. If anything, they are becoming louder in their call to the world to protect the right to health in Palestine by putting an end to the occupation.
People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.
