Doctors are wrapping premature babies at Al-Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, in foil and placed next to hot water in a bid to keep them alive in “catastrophic” conditions, the hospital director has alerted, as Israeli soldiers wage war against Hamas militants in Gaza and remaining fuel reserves dry up, leaving the hospital unable to operate.
Reports have it that hospital staff were struggling to keep the newborns alive and warm after the supply of oxygen ran out and they had to take the babies from the neonatal unit’s incubators to a different part of the hospital.
While talking to CNN, the Director of Medical Centre, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya said: “There is no more water, food, milk for children and babies… the situation in the hospital is catastrophic.”
The doctor told Al Araby TV recently that many children had died in the intensive care unit and the nursery over the past two days in the wake of Israel’s unrelenting bombardment and blockade of Gaza, an already impoverished and densely populated area, following the October 7 attack on its territory by Hamas militants.
Dr Medhat Abbas, the Director-General of Gaza’s health ministry, said medical staff at Al-Shifa kept four infants alive after their mothers died after undergoing C-sections.
He said: “Now they have to make it without their mothers and without electricity… Can you imagine that?
“When these babies are born prematurely, to sustain their lives they need to have the same temperature as their mother. This temperature can only be offered in the incubators, which are heated properly.”
The doctor warned that the situation would get worse as winter approaches.
A freelance journalist inside Al-Shifa said dozens of bodies are yet to be buried, ambulances were unable to collect the wounded, life-support systems could not function without electricity, medics were working by candlelight, food was being rationed and people inside were starting to drink piped water.
The World Health Organization says Al-Shifa has been without electricity for three days. It said: “Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”
