Israel’s onslaught on Gaza leading to ‘carnage’ as health system disintegrates, WHO warns

Injured forced to make impossible choice between risking death and amputating limb amid medical supply shortage

Israeli air strikes in Gaza are causing “carnage” in the besieged strip, as the injured are forced to make an impossible choice between risking death or undergoing limb amputation.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s blistering air and ground offensive has left only nine out of Gaza‘s 36 hospitals operational, putting an “unbearable strain” on health facilities, said World Health Organization director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus.

The comments came as WHO officials visited Al-Aqsa Hospital where scores of injured were taken after an Israeli airstrike on Christmas Eve in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp. At least 70 people including 12 women and seven children were killed, said the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

The attack came as the Israeli prime minister vowed to keep fighting in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed, defying global calls for a ceasefire. “We are not stopping,” he said on Monday while visiting troops in northern Gaza.  “The war will continue until the end, until we finish it, no less.”

Calling for a ceasefire, Dr Tedros raised concerns about the alarming situation in Gaza.

“The hospital is taking in far more patients than its bed capacity and staff can handle,” he wrote, warning about the shortage of supplies.

“Many will not survive the wait. It is currently running five operating theatres in the hospital and two more are being supported by[Doctors Without Borders], but it is still not enough.

“WHO is extremely concerned about the unbearable strain that escalating hostilities are putting on the few hospitals across Gaza that remain open  – with most of the health system decimated and brought to its knees,” he wrote.

The wounded are confronted with the difficult decision of undergoing limb amputation, as overcrowded hospitals lack basic equipment to perform surgeries. In some cases, doctors believe the limbs could have been saved with proper treatment.

Sean Casey, a WHO official who recently visited several hospitals in Gaza, said the acute lack of vascular surgeons — the first responders to trauma injuries and best positioned to save limbs — is increasing the likelihood of amputations.

But also in many cases, he said, the severe nature of the injuries means some limbs are not salvageable, and need to be removed as soon as possible.

"People may die of the infections that they have because their limbs are infected,” Mr Casey told a news conference last week. “We saw patients who were septic.”

There were many casualties at the Al Aqsa hospital with “extremely severe wounds but [who] cannot be treated because there are so many people in front of them in the line for surgery, and the hospital is absolutely overloaded,” Gemma Connell of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA told the BBC.

“What I saw at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in [the city of] Deir al-Balah was absolute carnage,” she said.

Israel declared war after Hamas militants stormed across the border on 7 October, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 240 hostages. Israel has vowed to keep up the fight until Hamas is destroyed and removed from power in Gaza and all the hostages are freed.

More than 20,600 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, about 70 per cent of them women and children, according to Gaza‘s health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.