The Wall Street Journal recently reported: “Israel Launches New Offensive in Northern Gaza, Orders Mass Evacuation.” Drop Site News reports: “As Israel Launches Massive Attack in Northern Gaza, Hospital Director Defies Israeli Evacuation Order.”
NAHREEN AHMED, nahreenhahmed@gmail.com
Ahmed is a pulmonary and critical care specialist and Penn Center for Global Health Scholar who was in Gaza and is going back. She leaves for Amman tomorrow evening. She for a time was in the ICU and the ER and can speak to that as well as malnutrition and abduction or arrest of Palestinian health care workers by the Israeli military.
She and those below are some of the 99 health care workers who signed the recent letter to Biden and Harris, which states: “With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child. … Every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. … President Biden and Vice President Harris, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned.”
WILHELMI MASSAY, wmassay@gmail.com
A critical care and trauma nurse based in Omaha, Massay said today: “The south of Gaza is horrible, but the north is even worse. Things like antibiotics were almost non-existent there. So patients died of preventable infections. I saw things I never saw. I saw puss coming out of IV catheters. I saw maggots coming out of a patient’s wound.”
BING LI, bing.lizel@gmail.com
Li is an emergency medicine physician based in Arizona who worked at the Indonesian hospital in the north of Gaza. She said today: “The doctors, nurses, and administrators that we met at the Indonesian hospital are by far the most admirable and heroic people that I’ve ever met in my life. They felt they had no choice but to stay at the hospital and provide care for the community because they could not fathom there being no health care services left for those in need.
“The Indonesian Hospital is a vital lifeline for civilians in North Gaza. Due to the destruction of Al Shifa Hospital, Indonesian Hospital re-opened very urgently after just being directly hit by airstrikes in May of 2024 which killed 22 patients and staff. The hospital, despite two of its floors being completely destroyed by the blasts, provides vital services including critical care, trauma surgery, neurosurgery, general surgery, and admissions for patients too sick to survive without being hospitalized. If the hospital shuts down services this is a death sentence for innocent people who are just trying to survive.
“Myself and the over a dozen other International doctors and nurses who have volunteered at Indonesian Hospital can attest that there is no military activity occurring inside the hospital, only health care workers and often very young medical student volunteers who despite the bombardment are attempting to continue their training and education.”
“A large percentage of the patients we received at Indonesian Hospital during June to early July of 2024 were women and children. One day we received many small children ages five and six, who were critically injured by shrapnel and penetrating objects.Thanks to the lifesaving surgery performed by the general surgeons of Indonesian Hospital two of the children survived who would have bled to death internally without operation. My heart breaks for the children who will certainly die if the hospital is forced to stop operations.”