EVEN without a full-scale Israeli ground invasion, Rafah’s medical facilities have been overwhelmed.
Medics say more than a million people sheltering in the southern Gaza city are at risk of being deprived of healthcare after the Israeli military began a “limited” operation against Hamas on its eastern outskirts on Monday.
The largest of the city’s three partially functioning hospitals, Abu Youssef al-Najjar, had to be hastily abandoned the following day after staff received an evacuation order and there was fighting nearby.
The hospital’s dialysis department had been the only surviving one in Gaza, a lifeline for patients suffering kidney failure.
The Israeli advance has also cut off access to the nearby European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, where critical patients were being referred for surgery, as well as the nearby Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings.
With the Emirati maternity hospital in Rafah busy delivering dozens of babies each day, the Kuwaiti Specialist hospital is struggling to cope with a surge of emergency cases despite a lack of capacity, staff and equipment.
One doctor at the hospital, which before the war had only four intensive care beds, said the situation there was “catastrophic in every sense of the word”.
“Unfortunately, the Kuwaiti hospital is a small hospital that does not have diagnostic capabilities,” Dr Jamal al-Hams, its director, told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline programme. “Even the X-ray machine is disabled due to the Israeli shelling and there are no spare parts for it, as the crossings are closed.”
“And the CBC analysis device has stopped due to being overloaded,” he added, referring to the complete blood count test used to diagnose and monitor numerous diseases.
Dr Hams said he and his colleagues were nevertheless having to treat people with complex trauma wounds, burns, fractures and crushed limbs.
“We have received some cases of torn abdomen and intestines, and cases of skull fractures with parts of the brain outside the skull,” he recalled. “Some cases have lost major parts of the buttocks, in addition to cases of amputation of the lower limbs at the foot area.
“These are unusual injuries caused by unusual weapons. I lived through all previous wars [in Gaza]… where injuries were always in a certain area and dealt with by one specialist. But now each case needs several specialists.”
He also expressed anger at how doctors at al-Najjar hospital had been forced to evacuate both the facility and their family homes at such short notice.
The Israeli military told all residents of a number of eastern areas of Rafah to leave for their own safety on Monday and head towards an “expanded humanitarian area” stretching from nearby al-Mawasi to the central town of Deir al-Balah, where it said there would be field hospitals, tents and aid.
“Where should they go? Tents and other supplies were supposed to be provided in other safe areas. This has not been done,” Dr Hams said.