Middle EastAnalysis

‘The situation is so desperate. Aid is a sticking plaster’

MSF emergency co-ordinator says an immediate ceasefire is needed in Gaza but she is not optimistic

Maha Abo Naja outside a clinic set up by Médecins Sans Frontières at the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital, where she is being treated for injuries sustained during Israeli bombardment. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

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Michael Jansen
Sun Mar 10 2024 - 07:00

While sea corridors and air drops dominate the agenda, Helen Ottens-Patterson says Gazans require more than aid – they need the fighting to stop.

The humanitarian response to the conflict in Gaza is an “illusion”, according to the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) emergency co-ordinator for the Strip.

“The situation is so desperate. Aid is just a sticking plaster,” says Ottens-Patterson by telephone from her base in Cairo.

She adds: “The level of destruction on the ground is massive. Hospitals are deliberately attacked, besieged, electricity turned off. The healthcare system is completely crushed.”

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Ottens-Patterson reiterates MSF’s call for an immediate ceasefire and praises the Irish government’s stance on the conflict, but she is not optimistic.

“With the exception of Ireland, the international community is completely impotent.”

MSF operates mainly in the south: in An-Najar Hospital, the Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah, the European Hospital, Emirati Maternity Hospital, one primary healthcare facility and two health posts in Al Mawasi, and on the coast in the Rafah area, where Israel has urged displaced people to shelter.

MSF also supports Nasser hospital in Khan Younis and Al-Awda and Al-Shifa hospitals in the north. Its teams carry out surgeries, treat wounds and provide post-partum and outpatient care, vaccinations, and mental health support.

MSF has 20 international staff and 250-300 Palestinian staff whose “number fluctuates,” Ottens-Patterson says. Many have been driven from the north to the south along with 1.1 million civilians and have to care for their families.

Five staff, and several family members of staff, have been killed and wounded. Associate trustee on the board of MSF UK and former staff member Reem Abu Lebdeh was killed at home in Khan Younis.

Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad Al Sahar were killed in a strike on Al-Awda hospital. Volunteer nurse Alaa Al-Shawa was shot in the head during the evacuation of an MSF convoy. And lab technician Mohammed Al Ahel was killed in bombing of Al Shati refugee camp.

Ottens-Patterson says: “We don’t have security and cannot work in the [strip’s] health structures.” MSF “can still get in minimal medical supplies. We don’t bring in food as food is available in Rafah for those who can afford it.

“In the south there are a few cases of malnutrition unlike the north [where cases are rising]. Malnourished people need special food and medical care. They need injections as they are susceptible to infections, anaemia, diarrhoea, pneumonia, and measles – and when they go home there is no food.”

Ottens-Patterson is sceptical of the maritime humanitarian corridor being established from Larnaca in Cyprus to Gaza.

“The sea is also a front line. Aid may get to the beach but there must be distribution to people who need it.”

She says air drops of aid are “symbolic politically but they are extremely expensive. Food parachuted in is no good for malnourished people”.

Ottens-Patterson says the war should not have been allowed to go on for five months. “Failure to abide by humanitarian law will come back to bite us.”

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