Looking for Trouble

The injured in Gaza, by Gerri Haynes

(Gerri Haynes and Laura Hart, of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, have returned to Gaza, taking in medicine. Gerri will be sending back reports.)

After visiting again with the Director of International Coordination for Medical Care, Laura and Mahmoud and I visited Shifa and Al Awda Hospitals. Shifa was busy with visiting delegations and journalists – we visited with a man whose leg was crushed in a collapsing building during the Pillar of Cloud bombing. The uncle of a baby whose hip and leg were broken in another bombed building sat outside the hospital waiting for a car to take them home. The baby’s mother was home with another child and his father was still in the hospital – recovering slowly from serious injuries sustained during the bombing.

At Al Awda Hospital, one of the physicians told us he has lost most of his hearing as a result of a bomb blast – the explosion destroying the car driving next to this doctor’s car. Al Awda is located in Jabalyia Refugee Camp – one of the most densely populated places on earth – and received bomb damage in several areas.

We also visited with a young man who was shot yesterday in the newly opened “no go” agricultural area near the border with Israel. This young man was with friends and

received a vessel-shattering wound to his groin. He crawled to his friends who then rushed him to the hospital (in private transportation). On arrival, he was in cardiac arrest and had nearly bled to death. Today, he was awake and stable enough to hold his little son.

In the afternoon, we accompanied Dr. Mona Farrah of the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) to a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). This school serves middle school boys and runs two shifts of 1,140 children per shift. During Pillar of Cloud, 300 families (2000 people) were housed in the school. Many schools housed people whose homes were deemed to be in the path of bombs, but 70 people were injured

– there was no safe place. Over and over, we hear that the leaflets dropped by Israel, warning of coming bombs created chaos because there were no assured safe places to go.

MECA has installed water purification systems in 16 schools in Gaza. Because 95% of the water here is unsafe for drinking, the purification of water is a major concern. The isolation and imprisonment of Gaza has many serious public effects – including a sense that the world often forgets that 1.7 million people are living under conditions creating increasing public health crises.

Staff of the school voiced interest in developing pen pal relationships for their students with students in the United States. The resilience of the people continues.