Inside Gaza
EYEWITNESS: By Ewa Jasiewicz
During a prolonged power cut in that six-day invasion there was no electricity to power a ventilator, and doctors took turns hand pumping oxygen to keep one casualty alive for four hours before they could be transferred. Roads were bulldozed, ambulances were banned from moving, dead people lay in their homes for days, and when permission was finally given for the corpses' collection, medics had to carry them on stretchers along the main street.
Today in Gaza everyone is terrified that such events are now repeating themselves, only worse. Gazans now feel collectively abandoned. The past week's massacres, indiscriminate attacks and overflowing hospitals, and the fact that anyone can be hit at any time in any place, has left people utterly terrorised. No-one dares think of what might become of them in these difficult and unpredictable days. As they say in Gaza, "Bi idhn Allah" - "It's up to God".
Ewa Jasiewicz is a journalist and activist. She is currently one of the only international journalists on the ground in Gaza.
Gaza hospital chief says medical supplies still low
AM/ ABC Australia - Wednesday, 31 December , 2008 08:03:00
Reporter: Sara Everingham
ELEANOR HALL: Some of the Palestinians injured in the Israeli air strikes have crossed into Egypt for treatment and Israel has allowed more trucks carrying aid into Gaza.
But doctors in the territory say their hospitals are still struggling to cope.
The director of the Anglican run Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, Suhaila Tarazi, spoke to Sara Everingham.
SUHAILA TARAZI: Today, we didn't sleep all night. Every hour there is an attack to a building. All surrounding areas were suffered from fear, from injuries and so on. And we are, up 'til this moment, we hear the bombardment of the Israelis to the authority buildings and to certain homes of people.
SARA EVERINGHAM: Have many of the people who have been injured come to your hospital?
SUHAILA TARAZI: Yes, we have received about 80 casualties at the hospital. The first day we have received in two hours' time, 45 cases; 30 of them admitted to the hospital for surgical interference. Two cases were arrived there, one of them a child of six years old and the other person is, was 28 years old…
SARA EVERINGHAM: Now who are these people? From what you can tell, who are they?
SUHAILA TARAZI: They are civilians. Their bad luck was that they were nearby the area that the Israeli hit by F-16.
SARA EVERINGHAM: Israel says it's doing all it can to avoid civilian casualties and that many of the casualties are people working with Hamas.
SUHAILA TARAZI: We didn't, at the hospital we didn't receive such, you know, such cases. But what we have received at the Arab hospital, most of them were civilians.
SARA EVERINGHAM: Israel has said that it's allowed some trucks with aid into Gaza. Has that arrived?
SUHAILA TARAZI: You know, some of them have arrived from Egypt and, you know, donor agencies, USAID and Care International and United Nations. They are working on that to let the aid come in but up 'til now we didn't receive anything. And we are, at the hospital, short of everything - medicine, medical supplies, blood - of everything.
SARA EVERINGHAM: So you haven't received any extra aid?
SUHAILA TARAZI: Even, even, even basic food to eat, to give for our patients, we lack of it. We do not have even, you know, mattresses to put patients on them.
ELEANOR HALL: That's the director of the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, Suhaila Tarazi, speaking to Sara Everingham.
The Scotsman
Published Date: 03 January 2009
By Ross Lydall
Three children – two brothers and a cousin playing in the street in southern
Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor at
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