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Aug 19, 2014 | Sam Hailes

Gaza’s Only Christian Hospital Struggles as Crisis Continues

[Lapidomedia] Gaza’s only Christian hospital, Al-Ahli is ‘struggling to provide critical health care’ as the death toll in the Strip reaches 2000.

 

The UK-based Church Mission Society (CMS) who founded the hospital are backing the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Jerusalem’s humanitarian appeal which seeks to raise £300,000 to fund fuel, medical supplies, food, the hiring of staff and repairs to the infrastructure in the Gaza City hospital.

 

CMS says hospital staff have maintained an ‘around-the-clock presence’ despite the recent fighting.

 

The CMS Regional manager for Europe Middle East and North Africa, Tanas Alqassis says parts of the hospital are damaged and supplies are running out.

 

‘It’s been very hard. Right now we are trying to get more funds so we can send it to the diocese to buy medicine and send it to the hospital.’

Urgent need

 

Director of Al-Ahli Hospital Dr Suhaila Tarazi said there has been no electricity for 16 hours a day and her staff ‘urgently need medicines and medical supplies.’

 

‘There is masonry and shrapnel everywhere…the psychological damage was immense on those who had already suffered Israeli attacks at home. Two injured patients said they felt the hospital was no longer safe; they told me they didn't want to die, and discharged themselves.’

 

Suhaila Tarazi, Director of Al-Ahli HospitalDr Tarazi has said in the past that Christian Palestinians in Gaza ‘can feel as if the Christian churches of the West have forgotten about us. Very few of our brothers and sisters around the world appear to care whether or not we live under human or inhuman conditions in Gaza… Palestinian Christians emigrate to the West to escape the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for employment, or to see their children grow up in safety’.

 

The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil Dawani reports the hospital has suffered structural damage to the ventilation system, operating theatre and emergency room, due to Israeli airstrikes.

 

According to the latest statistics from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1.8 million Palestinians are affected by the current humanitarian crisis.

 

With over 8,000 Palestinians injured. Gaza's other hospitals are also struggling to cope. Al-Ahli has so far received 1420 cases, of which more than 35 per cent were physical casualties.

 

Israel's daily reports on goods transferred to Gaza show that hundreds of trucks carrying 5,000 tons of goods and supplies per day have crossed the border. But Mr Alqassis is concerned some supplies will not reach the hospital:  'There are other organisations trying to get things in. [Israel] allowed some trucks with aid to come in but you never know. This is always tricky. You may get to the border to be told it can’t get in.’

Hope

 

Looking to the future, Mr Alqassis says he will ‘always have hope’ but now that the conflict has flared up for the third time in eight years, he warns that permanent solutions, like those suggested by Uri Dromi in hisinterview with Lapido Media earlier this month, are desperately needed.

 

‘We are hoping this time they talk and come up with a long-term solution. We always try to keep hope that it will change. But sometimes it just doesn’t work.’

 

‘If you look at the hospital itself they can’t even pay salaries for the staff. People who come to the hospital and use it don’t pay so people are getting very frustrated and when they get frustrated they lose hope. When they lose hope things get worse.’

 

Mr Alqassis says the financial support CMS is requesting will be used to buy extra beds and equipment.

 

'It is a catastrophe, looking at the situation. It's planting seeds for revenge because they get tired of it, which is really sad. We don't want that. We want to have peace and people to live together and work well. We have to keep praying for real peace to happen and try to encourage our government to warn that violence will not get us anywhere.'

Prayers

 

The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori who visited Gaza last year said, 'God weeps at this war between his children. We weep as we watch the destruction, and we should be storming heaven with prayers for peace.'

 

She noted that the Al-Ahli hospital ‘cares for all people in Gaza, both Muslim and Christian, with selfless dedication,’ and asked that people help the Diocese of Jerusalem ‘respond to the suffering in this latest violent chapter in the Land of the Holy One.’

 

At least 22 hospitals and health facilities have been damaged since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8.

 

Hamas is demanding an end to the blockade but Israel has said they will make no concessions on security and are pushing for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.