14 November 2024
This week, Medical Aid for Palestinians were invited to provide evidence to the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee, on the situation for healthcare in Gaza.
Professor Nizam Mamode, a volunteer surgeon for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), and Rohan Talbot, MAP’s Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, gave evidence alongside Nebal Farsakh from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Emina Ćerimović of Human Rights Watch, and Sam Rose from UNRWA.
MAP last briefed the Committee in January of this year, warning then that Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and siege are effectively making it impossible to sustain human life in Gaza. Ten months since the International Court of Justice ordered provisional measures to prevent genocide, Israeli forces have made Gaza uninhabitable: targeting civilians, attacking hospitals and killing health workers, depriving humanitarian assistance as collective punishment, and forcibly expelling Palestinians from their homes.
Speaking about his experience operating in Nasser hospital, Dr Nizam Mamode told the Committee about the injuries he treated:
“The drones would come down and pick off civilians — children. We had description after description. This is not an occasional thing. This was day after day after day of operating on children who would say, “I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped, and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.” That is clearly a deliberate and persistent act; there was persistent targeting of civilians day after day. We had one or two mass casualty incidents every day, which meant 10 to 20 dead and 20 to 40 seriously injured. A hospital like Guy’s and St Thomas’, where I used to work, might get one or two a year.”
Asked about impact of Israel’s intensified siege on the availability of essential healthcare supplies in Gaza, Professor Mamode recalled:
“I remember, one Saturday night, operating on an eight-year-old who was bleeding to death. I asked for a swab and they said, “No more swabs.” We had operations being done with no sterile gloves or no sterile drapes at various points. We had a lack of basic equipment. I did amputations on people who just had to take paracetamol after the operation as pain relief. That medical aid was sitting at the border and not being allowed in. We were not allowed to take any medical equipment, except for personal use. I was asked if I could bring thyroid medication for some people; I could not take it in. That is a deliberate policy.”
Reflecting on the failure of the UK Government to restrain the actions of Israel or uphold international law in Gaza, Rohan Talbot told the Committee,
“It is our assessment that this is a war on Palestinians—that the humanitarian crisis is not some accidental by-product. Across the board, as you have heard from doctors there, from our own agencies and from Palestinians themselves —ask any independent observer or any person on the ground and they will tell you — this is a situation of mass atrocities. Therefore, the approach that the Government takes simply cannot be based purely on aid alone. What is the point of providing funding for UNRWA if Israel is going to dismantle UNRWA's services? What is the point of providing aid that comes into Al-Arish—you see it packing up at the border—if it is not allowed to enter? If it does enter, there is no security, so it cannot be distributed, there is no warehousing and no fuel, and it is besieged from the north of Gaza.”
Rohan further explained how aid continues to be routinely obstructed, attacked and restricted by the Israeli authorities, with Israel having failed to fully implement the measures ordered of it by the International Court of Justice, or the measures demanded by the US in October, causing an ever-worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
We are grateful for the opportunity to update the committee, and urge real action to uphold international law and prevent further catastrophe in Gaza.
The UK must end its complicity in Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians. Take action and please email your MP now.