By Frank Chung

Copyright news

An Australian doctor working in Gaza says she was forced to deliver a baby via C-section from a nine-month-pregnant “beheaded lady” amid Israel’s devastating bombing campaign.

Dr Nada Abu Alrub and Dr Saya Aziz, both from Queensland, described the horror conditions at Gaza City’s under-siege Al-Shifa Hospital in a video shared online on Friday.

They had previously been working at al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip before moving north to Al-Shifa, the city’s largest hospital, two days earlier.

“It’s a nightmare,” Dr Abu Alrub said.

“When we came from the middle to the north, we saw people are evacuating. Instead of 20 minutes on the road it took us eight hours.

“As soon as we reached … bombing after bombing, with Apaches, F-35s, F-16s … all sorts of weapons attacking us from everywhere around the hospital. The number of patients and the number of dead bodies arriving are ridiculous.

“More than 1500 people are still dead under the rubble in the hospital. Today they bombed just in front of the main entrance of the hospital, two days ago they did the same.”

She described the chaotic and filthy conditions, where medical professionals lack basic supplies like soap, gloves or anaesthetic and patients are treated on the floor.

“One mass casualty today, at least 10 to 20 [were] dead on arrival or GCS3 [Glasgow Coma Scale] that we can’t do anything about,” she said.

“We don’t even have painkillers, the only thing that we have is ketamine so you just want to give them something for comfort and not to die in a bad way in front of their parents or family.

“I had a beheaded lady who’s nine months pregnant that we had to deliver her by an emergency C-section in the emergency room, and luckily the [baby] girl [survived].”

Dr Abu Alrub said they were fearful that they could be bombed “at any time” walking from the hospital to their accommodation.

“We are doing this video because we know we might die at any moment,” she said.

“As internationals, we were told we would be given an evacuation order [before the hospital entrance was bombed]. No evacuation order was given.

“The situation here is just disastrous, I can’t describe it.

“There’s no internet and no electricity, we’re still out of Wi-Fi so we cant communicate with our family, and they’re asking us to stay silent otherwise our life will be in danger — what is that supposed to mean?

“We’re not allowed to show the photos because its so traumatic, but we’re documenting this … because someone needs to see this, someone needs to help these poor people.

“They’re just hitting things randomly. Doctors here don’t come to work because their family members are dead or they’ve been told to go to the south at least to save themselves from being killed.

“Anyone who stays here, they know they that they will be killed and they can’t come back. the situation needs to stop. I don’t know what to say but I’m asking for help. I know our life is in danger too.

“We are hardly surviving … and hardly able to help anyone.”

According to her online bio, Dr Abu Alrub trained at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, St. George Hospital and Royal North Shore Private Hospital, as well as Port Macquarie Base Hospital and Dubbo Base Hospital.

She later became a GP, working at clinics in Tamworth, Cairns, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast, where she currently practices at MedCentres Robina.

Dr Aziz, an anaesthetist, said the conditions were “catastrophic … I can’t even begin to explain how horrific the situation is”.

“They have to bring the patient on their own mattress, if they’re lucky and they’ve rescued it from the rubble … the family members have to lift the patients onto the bed,” she said.

“It is filthy, there’s nothing to clean anything with, there’s flies everywhere in the rooms.

“Healthcare is not collapsing, it has collapsed. And then on top of that the bombs are dropping constantly. It’s intentional psychological warfare.

“The worst part is it’s all children and women and young families.

“It’s a stain on our humanity. I’m ashamed to be an Australian.”

Dr Mutaz Harara, the head of Al-Shifa’s emergency department, told Sky News on Sunday that people no longer felt the hospital was a safe place and many were fleeing south.

“Even the medical teams themselves have begun to flee in search of shelter and homes for their families,” he said.

“What has happened at al Shifa, targeting doctors and medical teams, has happened more than once.

“Some colleagues remain in Israeli prisons, some tortured, some martyred. Hospitals have been left exposed, without protection from international law.”

Israel has stepped up its bombing attacks on Gaza City in recent days as it prepares to launch a major ground offensive to seize the territory’s largest urban centre in its war against terror group Hamas.

The dire humanitarian crisis in the largely destroyed Gaza Strip has led to growing international pressure on the Jewish state, which began its offensive against the coastal territory in the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1219 people, most of them civilians.

Hamas fighters slaughtered and tortured entire families in the brutal attack, before taking hundreds of Israeli hostages back to its vast underground tunnel network in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 65,208 people — including more than 1700 doctors, nurses and paramedics — according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

On Sunday, Australia joined Britain, Canada and Portugal in formally recognising the State of Palestine, in a historic shift in decades of Western foreign policy that drew a furious response from Israel.

In a video message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Palestinian recognition as “the latest attempt to force upon us a terror state in the heart of our land”.

“There will be no Palestinian state,” Mr Netanyahu said.

“I have a clear message to those leaders who are recognising a Palestinian state after the horrendous October 7 massacre: you are rewarding terror with an enormous prize.

“And I have another message for you — it’s not going to happen.

“There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River.”

On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said 450,000 residents of Gaza City’s estimated one million inhabitants had fled since Israel began its assault in late August.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday again urged Palestinian residents to flee the area.

Hamas on Saturday ominously released what it called a “parting image” of the remaining 48 Israelis being held captive in Gaza, a day after the IDF warned it would use “unprecedented force” in Gaza City and estimated it has destroyed up to 20 Gaza City tower blocks — suspected Hamas hideouts — over the past two weeks.

The terror group, in anticipation of IDF forces encircling the critical city, issued its strongest warning yet on Thursday, saying the military takeover of Gaza City meant Israel had lost any chance of having the hostages returned — dead or alive.

“The operation in Gaza City will be met with fierce resistance, and the death and destruction that the enemy tries to bring to Gaza’s streets will befall its soldiers,” Hamas senior official Bassem Naim said on Qatari television Thursday, according to the Times of Israel.

“Those who harm us during the operation in Gaza City will also harm the hostages, living and dead.”

— with AFP and NewsWire