Dr. Tammy Abughnaim:
Well, I would describe it the way any returned aid worker describes it. It’s disastrous and it’s unacceptably disastrous.
There seems to be this idea floating around that, oh my god, the health care system is decimated, it’s incompetent, it’s crippled. But it’s still somewhat functional. But it’s nowhere near the capacity it should be. And it’s not a spontaneous natural disaster that happened in Gaza. It is the result of deliberate targeting and strikes.
And so the things that we’re seeing in Al-Aqsa Hospital and Nasser Hospital is a lack of supplies because Israel is limiting the amount of entry, both supplies and personnel that can come. So on any given day that I’m on call, we didn’t have enough tourniquets. We reused supplies that technically shouldn’t be reused, like ventilators, intubation tubes.
We used giant rubber bands as tourniquets. The lack of specialized surgical equipment is also a problem, as many of these patients require surgery and they are simply unable to obtain it. And all this is a direct result of the restrictions imposed by Israel.