Doctors In Gaza Pingsan In The Operation Room Because They Are Hungry, Given Infusion So They Can Still Treat Patients

JAKARTA - Doctors in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians continue to provide health services to operations for civilians, despite the Israeli blockade making them carry out operations with their stomachs empty until they lose weight.

The face of deep exhaustion from the impact of the Israeli blockade and what Palestinians describe as a hunger policy that has gripped the region for 22 months, appears from doctors at Gaza City Eye Hospital, the main center of eye surgery in the Gaza Strip.

Driven by the task, surgeons are working marathons under siege conditions that have made bread a rare item and made sugar and protein more expensive than gold.

"We continue to survive because we have no choice," a doctor told Anadolu Agency, as quoted by the Daily Sabah on August 14.

Physician Mohammed Al-Tayeb, 33, said he had been practicing for seven years, but the last two years have been the heaviest since March, especially since he and his colleagues, along with the entire population of Gaza, experienced what he called "systematic logic."

"We are working on a double shift as aid seekers are targeted," he said, referring to Israeli troops shooting at Palestinians awaiting humanitarian aid.

The United Nations World Food Program warns that a third of Gaza's 2.4 million population has been without food for days, calling this crisis an "unprecedented" humanitarian collapse.

Hundreds of aid trucks are needed every day to prevent hunger, the United Nations said, as hunger increasingly grips the people who are already suffering from war.

"Our salaries come every two or three months as a down payment that is barely enough to buy flour," said Al-Tayeb.

"Surgery surgery has jumped from once a month before the war to three times a day, each lasting for one to three hours," he added.

Eating only once a day, he has lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds) since March.

"I walked several kilometers to the hospital and could not find sugar or protein. Even pregnant women and children lacked staple food," he said.

Meanwhile, the hospital director, Abdel Salam Sabbah, described this situation as "difficult and bitter" for the medical and administrative team.

"Doctors fainted in the operating room due to fatigue and food shortages, and we gave them infusion so they could continue to work," he said.

Most of the staff arrived at work with their stomachs empty and ate only once a day.

Separately, the head of the anesthesia department Dr. Iyad Abu Karsh for 25 years said malnutrition and food scarcity had caused severe fatigue, especially as working hours had doubled to 24 hours.

Complex operations to save vision or life require high concentration and energy, he said, "but our food is small."

"We feel tremendous fatigue, dizziness, and headaches at work," said Dr. Maha Daban, explaining the impact of food shortages on the health and performance of doctors.

"Our heart rate was faster, and my weight fell 8 kilograms (18 pounds). The blockade has left us with vitamin and protein deficiencies," he added.

"Our arms need the right nutrition, and without it, I can't give the same energy to save patients," he said.