By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is talking to medical agencies about setting up field hospitals in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where it has told Palestinian civilians to seek refuge while it fights Hamas in the north, an Israeli official said on Thursday.
Colonel Elad Goren of COGAT, an Israeli Defence Ministry agency that liaises with Palestinians on civilian affairs, said the idea was initially to address the general needs of the wounded, potentially moving to more specialised care later.
“Right now, we are talking about field hospitals that would provide the basic medical care required for war trauma,” Goren told Reuters.
“Field hospitals can, potentially, be equipped to provide specialised medical care, given their modular structure, but this would be further down the line. There is also the question of where to find specialised staff,” he said.
Nearly four weeks of Israeli bombardment and blockade of Gaza, in response to an attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which Israel says 1,400 of its citizens were killed, have rendered conditions in Gaza desperate.
The Israeli strikes have killed more than 9,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 3,700 children, according to health authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
Over a third of the territory’s 35 hospitals are not functioning at all, with many turned into impromptu refugee camps and some rescuers using donkey carts instead of ambulances.
The charity Medical Aid for Palestinians on Thursday described the situation in hospitals as “beyond catastrophic” with dwindling fuel, packed corridors and many medics themselves bereaved and homeless.
Goren said 700,000 of the usual 1 million residents of the northern Gaza Strip had evacuated southwards.
“We are not at war with Gaza’s civilians. We are doing everything possible to get more humanitarian aid in,” he said, adding that the limitations on aid trucks entering Gaza were down to logistical challenges, not Israeli restrictions.
He cited the speed at which cargo could be loaded onto trucks at Egypt’s Al Arish port, and the number of trucks available in Gaza.
“Right now, around 80 trucks are going into Gaza daily,” he said. Aid agencies say this is a fraction of what is needed given the scale of the humanitarian disaster.
Goren said Israel was having “quality versus quantity” discussions with donors.
“For example, asking them not to send items such as beans, which require cooking, and instead to send ready-to-eat tinned foods,” he said.
(Repoorting by Dan Williams; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
