Hospitals in Gaza are being targeted – patients and visitors killed!

The following letter from Brother Peter Bray is one of a series of updates on Gaza that he’s been sharing with us from the relative safety of Bethlehem, where he is Vice Chancellor of Bethlehem University.

I know Peter pretty well – a New Zealander whom I have met with on numerous occasions when he’s been in Sydney. He is a beautiful man with a transparent commitment to the young people of Palestine. Bethlehem University is a Catholic institution but it welcomes all young people as students – Christians and Muslims – and is a wonderful example the harmony that might exist across Palestine if only the Occupation could be brought to an end.

Father Dave

Brother Peter Bray

Greetings again as things gets worse in Gaza.

I feel reluctant to write yet again, but the situation is deteriorating in Gaza and I think it is important for people around the world to know what is happening here.

It is hard to see how the incessant  pounding of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military can in any way be justified and it staggers me that the International Community allows it to continue. There are now over 600 Palestinians who have been killed and over 3700 injured with the vast majority being non combatants, yet the killing goes on. Even hospitals have become targeted and patients as well as visitors have been killed. At the same time there is a growing unrest on the West Bank as more and more Palestinians here become overwhelmed by the enormity of the attack on the innocent and helpless in Gaza. There is a growing possibility that this unrest will flare into violent protests if the killing continues.

I find it somewhat surreal here in Bethlehem where life is going on more or less as normal while just a short distance away there is this incredible bloodbath! There are protests at night and the Israeli military are responding in a very aggressive way with gunfire and stun grenades, but here in Bethlehem to date there have been no casualties. Nevertheless, it is not like the experience of people in Gaza. It is difficult to get a clear picture of what life is like for people there, but I was sent a letter from a Norwegian doctor who is working in Gaza which I would like to share with you. It is rather graphic so be warned, but it conveys the reality of what people are experiencing there.

From Norwegian doctor in Gaza Mads Gilbert

Dearest friends,

The last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying – all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS! 

Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).

My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace – but we cannot afford that, nor can they.

Ashy grey faces – Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas – the leftovers from death – all taken away…to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs. enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors – all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterdays hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormous resolute.t

And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flows, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!

An then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones (Arabic ‘Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much made and paid in and by US. 

Mr. Obama – do you have a heart?  I invite you – spend one night – just one night – with us in Shifa.  I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.

Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.

But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.

The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.

Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue.

Mads Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Dr Mads Gilbert kisses a child goodbye

Please keep these people in your thoughts and prayers and do what you can to influence those who can help bring about a ceasefire and stop this killing.

Best wishes

Brother Peter