European Hospital in Gaza Strip like ‘open-air concentration camp,’ says French doctor

By Esra Taskin

PARIS (AA) - A French doctor who worked for about two weeks at the European Hospital in the Gaza Strip said the area was like an "open-air concentration camp.”

"People are being forcibly displaced, they have no home, no food. They are in prison. They have nothing to treat. It is like a ghetto, an open-air concentration camp,” Raphael Pitti told Anadolu.

A team of seven French medical personnel went to the region between Jan. 22 and Feb. 6 to work at the European Hospital in Gaza.

Pitti said he has been to Syria 35 times and Ukraine 11 times so far, and provided training to medical personnel in a war environment.

Noting that they decided to go to Gaza, but Israel prevented international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from entering the region, just like it did with journalists, he said: "That's why we established a community, because preventing NGOs from their duties to help the public is against international humanitarian law."

The French medical team reached Gaza after waiting for four months, thanks to a US NGO that had the authority to enter the region.

About the conditions of the European Hospital in Gaza, he said there was a "catastrophic" situation due to the overcrowding taking shelter.

"They sleep in (the hospital), bake bread, and they've their children with them,” he said, adding that the hospital, which has a capacity of 400 beds, provides service with 900 beds.

“There were sounds of ambulances bringing patients, bombardments, snipers, and drones. As all beds were occupied, seriously ill patients were being treated on the ground,” he said.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack in early October by the Palestinian group Hamas killed around 1,200 people.

More than 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed and 75,750 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which last week asked it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar in Ankara