UN staff who helped evacuate critically wounded patients from Gaza’s Nasser Hospital describe ‘appalling’ conditions at the facility.
Officials from the United Nations who conducted evacuation missions from Gaza’s Nasser Hospital have described “appalling” conditions at the enclave’s second-largest medical facility, saying an Israeli military operation there has transformed a “place of healing” into a “place of death”.
The comments, in videos posted online on Wednesday, came amid growing concern for the dozens of patients and staff who remain trapped inside the hospital amid intensified Israeli bombardment of the area.
The hospital, in Gaza’s Khan Younis city, stopped functioning last week after a week-long Israeli siege followed by a raid, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The global health agency, along with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), has so far managed to evacuate some 32 critical patients, including injured children and those with paralysis.
Jonathan Whittal, an OCHA official who took part in the evacuation missions on February 18 and 19, said patients at the hospital were in a “desperate situation” and were trapped without food, water and electricity.
“The conditions are appalling. There are dead bodies in the corridors,” he said. “This has become a place of death, not a place of healing.”
The rescue mission has previously said they had to navigate through pitch-black corridors with flashlights to find patients against a backdrop of gunfire. They had to arrive on foot because a deep, muddy ditch near the hospital has made roads near the site impassable.
“You can think about the worst situation ever. You multiply that by 10 and this is the worst situation I have seen in my life,” said Julio Martinez, a WHO staff. “It’s the debris, it’s the light – working in the darkness. Patients everywhere.”
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