Gaza city: The situation in Gaza is beyond a "catastrophe," with the enclave left without a functioning health system and widespread famine setting in, a senior official of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Saturday. "The situation is really beyond being described as a catastrophe anymore. Catastrophe is a very simple word now, soft word. It's really worse than calling it a catastrophe," Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb, MSF's deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, told Anadolu in an interview.
According to Anadolu Agency, the health sector has been systematically dismantled over 22 months of Israeli bombardment, with most hospitals destroyed or out of service. Mughaiseeb stated, "I'm not saying now collapsed health system. No, there is no health system anymore in Gaza." He noted that the remaining field clinics and makeshift wards are overflowing with wounded and critically ill patients. Hospital occupancy rates have soared to 300%, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, leaving patients on bare floors and halting many surgeries due to shortages. Only 15 of 38 hospitals are partially operational, most heavily damaged by Israeli strikes.
Abu Mughaiseeb highlighted that a trickle of recent aid trucks has done little to stem a worsening famine in Gaza. "There is no food, no medicine, no real humanitarian aid," he said, emphasizing the dire situation. He pointed out that children dying from starvation have underlying diseases that could be treated if food and special supplement proteins and milk were available. A UN-backed food security assessment has already confirmed famine in northern Gaza and expects it to spread further south by the end of September.
The MSF official also condemned Israeli- and US-backed distribution schemes that replaced UN operations, calling them unsafe. He described the distribution points as "really a death distribution point," noting that civilians are often attacked near these locations. Gaza's Health Ministry reports more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 15,000 injured by Israeli army fire while waiting for aid since May.
On Israel's plan to reoccupy Gaza City, Abu Mughaiseeb warned it would force nearly two million displaced Palestinians into an unlivable corner of the enclave, describing it as "a mad plan." He questioned the feasibility of creating a humanitarian zone capable of absorbing 2 million people and providing them with necessary healthcare and food. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that he had approved the military's operational plan to seize Gaza City as part of a broader strategy to reoccupy the enclave and disarm Palestinian resistance groups.
Israel has killed over 62,600 Palestinians in a brutal onslaught in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine. Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.