REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, GAZA -- The Indonesian hospital (RSI) in northern Gaza has ceased operations due to a lack of supplies and an influx of patients amid an Israeli offensive. Video footage from the hospital located in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip showed wounded Palestinians lined up in the halls of the facility and lying on their stomachs amid pools of blood.
“We cannot offer any services anymore we cannot offer any beds to patients,” RSI Director, Atef al-Kahlout, reported Al Jazeera on Thursday (16/11/2023).
Al-Kahlout said the RSI has a capacity of 140 patients. Currently, about 500 patients are in the hospital. He said 45 patients required immediate surgical intervention.
Al-Kahlout called for ambulances not to bring more injured people to the facility because of a lack of capacity. He said that hospital departments were unable to carry out their work. Meanwhile health officials at the RSI mentioned severe supply shortages.
“All hospitals in Gaza City and the northern territories have ceased operations,” al-Kahlout said.
While an RSI officer said, they had no empty beds to accommodate patients. The injured who were in RSI were forced to sleep on the floor, in the hallways of the hospital.
“We don't have a bed. This guy needs an intensive care unit,” a hospital official said, pointing to a young man lying on the floor while being treatedy by a nurse.
“And (here),” the hospital official said while pointing to another patient whose leg was amputated. “We have no medicine,” he said. The hospital official said RSI received wounded people from Wadi Gaza to Beit Hanoon. Some patients have been on the RSI for 10 days.
Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been wounded since Israel began its offensive in Gaza on October 7. Meanwhile more than 11,400 people have been killed, including more than 4,600 children, in Israel's offensive in Gaza. Israel also severely restricts water, food, electricity and fuel supplies. All aid agencies are warning of a humanitarian disaster in the region.
“The medical team (at the Indonesian hospital) was forced to amputate some patients because their organs were decomposing,” Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Khan Younis.
Abu Azzoum added that the hospital was unable to transfer the injured elsewhere. The Indonesian Hospital is located near the Jabalia refugee camp, the largest in Gaza. The hospital has also housed hundreds of refugees seeking refuge.
The neighborhood surrounding the hospital has been attacked several times by Israeli forces.
The Israeli military has accused the Indonesian Hospital of being used to hide Hamas' underground command and control center. Palestinian officials and the Indonesian group that funded the hospital have rejected such unsubstantiated claims.
Meanwhile, concerns are growing for the thousands of civilians trapped in al-Shifa Hospital, amid an ongoing Israeli offensive. On Thursday night, the Israeli army published a video claiming to show a Hamas tunnel and a vehicle containing large quantities of weapons at the al-Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza. But experts and citizens do not believe the evidence claimed by Israel.
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