Doctors forced to flee al-Shifa hospital to southern Gaza recount 'terrifying' journey
Doctors from the al-Shifa hospital recount the moment they made the difficult choice of leaving the hospital, which is now under Israeli siege after Israel gave medical staff an ultimatum on Friday afternoon.
Speaking to MEE's Aseel Mousa, Palestinian surgeon Hayal al-Sheikh Khalil said she left al-Shifa after spending more than a month inside the facility since the beginning of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza over a month ago.
She told Middle East Eye that she had left the hospital along with her two brothers and a number of female doctors.
"I cannot comprehend the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation in al-Shifa hospital, a facility housing a very large number of wounded individuals and civilian doctors who have left their homes and families to provide care," Khalil said.
She said that many of the patients in al-Shifa have lost their entire families, leaving them without anyone to attend to their needs.
The urgency of their situation requires transportation by ambulance, she said, yet ambulances are scarce in the Gaza Strip, with many of them having been bombed and additional ambulances unable to reach the hospital.
"Most of the cases I have operated on are children, who are now left without adequate medical staff, no medical materials, no electricity and no fuel. They are literally left to die," Khalil said.
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