LONDON: A British surgeon who volunteered in Gaza has said a “huge amount” of her operations were on children younger than 16, the BBC reported on Friday.
Dr. Victoria Rose added that common injuries included bullet wounds, shrapnel injuries and burns, and that she had performed surgery on many children younger than 6. Many patients are unable to heal from surgery due to malnutrition, she said.
The consultant plastic surgeon spent two weeks working in late March at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
In that time, she only operated on one person older than her — a 53-year-old. That fact was the “most shocking bit” of her time in Gaza, she told the “Today” program.
Rose added: “Everybody else was younger than me. A huge amount of my work was under-16s. Quite a worrying proportion of my work was 6 and under.”
Injuries to Palestinians required “removing foreign bodies from tissue, reconstructing defects in faces, removing bullets from jaws, that kind of thing,” she said.
“When we were looking at some of our patients who were not doing so well, there was a lot more infection than I’ve ever seen anywhere else.
“A lot of people’s protein levels were in their boots, their haemoglobin levels were down. They are just not getting any nutrients, any vitamins or minerals.”
At the time of Rose’s visit, she and a fellow doctor, Graeme Groom, regularly heard nearby fighting and operated on freshly wounded patients as the Israeli military assaulted Khan Younis.
Groom said: “As (the bombing) became closer it was a very short time before we saw the effects of the bombing.
“Just walking past the emergency department, for example, a pickup truck filled with distraught people backed up to the door with a pile of entwined corpses, followed by a line of cars with more bodies in the boots.”
Many Palestinians have taken refuge in the European Hospital, but those who have set up makeshift tents on nearby ground are being forced to move due to the need for new graves, Groom added.
“Now there is a huge and spreading cemetery so that the graves of the newly dead are now displacing the shelters of the barely living.”
The World Health Organization’s representative for Palestine, Rik Peeperkorn, said on Friday after visiting Khan Younis that the city’s destruction is “disproportionate to anything one can imagine.”
He added: “No building or road is intact, there is only rubble and dirt.” Three other hospitals in the city have been rendered non-functional by fighting, he said.
‘Worrying proportion’ of patients in Gaza are children aged 6 and younger: British surgeon
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‘Worrying proportion’ of patients in Gaza are children aged 6 and younger: British surgeon
- ‘Huge amount’ of Dr. Victoria Rose’s operations were on children younger than 16
- Patients struggling to heal after ‘not getting any vitamins or minerals’ due to famine
Jordan condemns Israel’s seizure of planning powers at Ibrahimi Mosque
- Announcement on Wednesday by Israeli Civil Administration said it had transferred planning powers from Palestinian Authority-run Hebron Municipality to its own Supreme Planning Council
AMMAN: Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs on Friday strongly condemned Israel’s decision to revoke the planning and construction authorities of the Hebron Municipality at the Ibrahimi Mosque, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The ministry described the move as a blatant violation of international law and the historical and legal status quo at the holy site, JNA added.
The condemnation follows an announcement on Wednesday by the Israeli Civil Administration the body overseeing the occupied West Bank, that it had transferred planning powers from the Palestinian Authority-run Hebron Municipality to its own Supreme Planning Council.
The decision was accompanied by approval for a project to construct a roof over the mosque’s internal courtyard, a move that has drawn fierce Palestinian opposition.
The Hebron Municipality also condemned the Israeli decision, describing it as a “serious and illegal violation” and part of a systematic effort to alter the status quo at the mosque and weaken the authority of Palestinian institutions responsible for its management.
In a statement, the Jordanian ministry said Israel, as the occupying power, was acting unlawfully by unilaterally approving construction works at the Ibrahimi Mosque and stripping Palestinian authorities of their administrative powers, warning that the measures undermine the Islamic administration of the site.
The ministry’s official spokesperson, Fouad Al-Majali, affirmed Jordan’s “absolute rejection and severe condemnation” of Israel’s continued illegal unilateral measures in the occupied West Bank, most recently those targeting the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
Al-Majali added that the actions constituted clear violations of international law and international humanitarian law, including the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, as well as relevant United Nations resolutions.
He also pointed to UNESCO’s 2017 decision to inscribe Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
He called on the international community to shoulder its “legal and moral responsibilities” by compelling Israel to halt its illegal measures in the occupied Palestinian territory, protect the cultural and religious heritage of the Ibrahimi Mosque, and preserve its outstanding universal value, which he said is under increasing threat due to Israeli actions.
Al-Majali further emphasized that achieving security and a just and comprehensive peace would remain impossible without fulfilling the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
