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Gaza Before October 7
On 6 October 2023, Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was running medical humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestinian Territories. On that day, our colleagues were tending to patients in Gaza wounded by so-called butterfly bullets, fired by Israeli snipers at people as they protested in the days and weeks prior to the war that engulfed the region on 7 October. We were also treating 87 patients for long-term injuries (down from an original patient cohort of almost 900), sustained in the Great March of Return escalation in 2018 and 2019.
This documentary was filmed in May, 2023. It illustrates some of the challenges that existed before the full-scale war that began on 7 October, including the challenges faced by medical professionals and hospitals due to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, making it extremely difficult to import essential medical items, such C-arms (mobile x-ray machines, essential for orthopaedic surgeries). However, it also illustrates that prior to October, there was a robust and functional healthcare system in Gaza, offering advanced surgical care, research and stewardship on antimicrobial resistance among other things.
Today that healthcare system no longer exists, it has been systematically dismantled in bombing, fighting; and the killing, abuse and arrest of medical professionals and patients.
Doctors Without Borders calls for an immediate and sustained ceasefire that will spare the lives of Gazans and restore the flow of humanitarian aid on which the survival of the population of Gaza depends. We are calling for the protection of civilians and healthcare facilities on both sides, at all times.
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