The daily life of a doctor in southern Gaza

“We’re having a lot of [elderly] patients dying of chronic illnesses, those who should receive treatment abroad, and there’s nothing we can do here,” says Dr. Majed Jaber, an emergency room physician in Gaza.

With the lack of analgesics and other pain management options due to Israel’s increasing restrictions on medical supplies, humanitarian aid and food, he tells The Electronic Intifada Podcast, “we’re just trying to prolong their inevitable demise.”

Jaber talks about his involvement in re-opening parts of the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis and the impact that the lack of medications and basic equipment continues to have on his patients and the broader medical community in Gaza.

The Gaza government media office announced earlier this month that it was launching “an urgent humanitarian distress call to save two million displaced people in the Gaza Strip before it is too late, coinciding with the onset of winter and the deterioration of the displaced people’s tents.”

Jaber tells us about the conditions of people in these tents, especially in places like al-Mawasi, which Israel has bombed several times, most recently on 10 September.

When winter comes, he says, “the rains are going to demolish most of these tents – these camps are going to be swamped in mud, these rods and these wooden parts that they’re using are just going to fall down by the effect of the water and the effect of the mud. It’s going to be a disaster.”

He also warns of the accelerated starvation in these tent shelters as the season changes and as Israel continues to restrict food aid into Gaza. “Most of these people rely on bread as the main source of food, and they use these muddy ovens. And these muddy ovens are also going to fall apart … they [won’t] have a reliable source for food.”

Watch the entire interview above, or listen via SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Produced by Tamara Nassar

Photo by Omar Ashtawy / APA images