LONDON: An American surgeon working in Gaza has described the dire conditions in hospitals, saying Palestinian patients have died due to a lack of medical supplies and equipment.

Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who spent three weeks treating patients in Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals, told the BBC that doctors are operating without soap, antibiotics or X-ray facilities.

“The small community hospital, Al-Aqsa, is a tenth the size of any of the facilities in my home state — maybe smaller — and it did well to manage those horrible injuries,” he told the broadcaster following his second trip to the Palestinian enclave.

“Nevertheless, because of lack of equipment, many, many of those patients died, who would certainly not have died at a better-equipped hospital.”

He described treating severely wounded children, including a 15-year-old girl hit by Israeli machinegun fire while riding her bicycle and a boy, the same age, who was in a car with his grandmother after receiving warnings to evacuate from the north.

“They were both macerated and shredded by Apache gunships,” Perlmutter said. “The girl will be lucky if she keeps three of her limbs.”

Perlmutter was inside Nasser Hospital when an Israeli airstrike targeted Hamas finance chief Ismail Barhoum.

He said Barhoum was receiving medical treatment and had a right to protection under the Geneva Convention. The Israeli military said he was in the hospital “in order to commit acts of terrorism.”

With most hospitals in Gaza barely functioning, Perlmutter praised the commitment and dedication of the Palestinian medical staff, which he said go above and beyond the efforts of foreign doctors like himself.

“They all abandon their families, they volunteer and often work without pay. We get to go home in a month, which they don’t,” he said.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, has called the situation in Gaza “dire,” noting that humanitarian aid remains blocked at border crossings.

Israel’s onslaught has killed more than 15,000 Palestinian children in Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry has said, adding that since Israel broke a ceasefire and resumed its strikes on March 18, 921 Palestinians have been killed.

Perlmutter warned that if the Israeli attacks continue, hospitals operating without urgent medical supplies will see more wounded Palestinians die from treatable injuries.

GAZA CITY: The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it had recovered the bodies of 15 rescuers killed a week ago when Israeli forces targeted ambulances in the Gaza Strip.
Bodies of eight medics from the Red Crescent, six members of Gaza’s civil defense agency and one employee of a UN agency were retrieved, the Red Crescent said in a statement.
It said one medic from the Red Crescent remained missing.
The group said the those killed “were targeted by the Israeli occupation forces while performing their humanitarian duties as they were heading to the Hashashin area of Rafah to provide first aid to a number of people injured by Israeli shelling in the area.”
“The occupation’s targeting of Red Crescent medics ... can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate before the eyes of the entire world.”
In an earlier statement the Red Crescent said the bodies “were recovered with difficulty as they were buried in the sand, with some showing signs of decomposition.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency also confirmed that 15 bodies had been recovered, adding that the deceased UN employee was from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA.
The incident occurred on March 23 in Rafah city’s Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood, close to the Egyptian border, just days after the military resumed its bombardments of Gaza following an almost two-month-long truce.
On Saturday, the Red Crescent had accused Israeli authorities of refusing to allow search operations to locate its crew.
The Israeli military acknowledged its troops had opened fire on ambulances.
It told AFP in a statement this week that its forces had “opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists.”
“A few minutes afterwards, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops” who “responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles,” it said, adding that several “terrorists” were killed.
“Some of the suspicious vehicles... were ambulances and fire trucks,” the military statement said, citing “an initial inquiry” into the incident.
It condemned “the repeated use” by “terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes.”
Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that since resumption of hostilities on March 18, Israeli air strikes have hit “densely populated areas,” with “patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed.”
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 921 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed its large-scale strikes.