[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 184 (Tuesday, November 7, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5387-S5388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Israel
Mr. President, one of my extraordinary friends in Chicago is Dr.
Sahloul. Dr. Sahloul is a Syrian American. He is an exceptional man,
and his wife Suzanne is also an extraordinary person. He has created an
organization called MedGlobal. The best way to summarize what it does
is to think of doctors without frontiers and how they travel across the
world and go to some of the most dangerous places and volunteer medical
assistance. Dr. Sahloul, through MedGlobal, has done the same thing.
Many of the doctors who volunteer for MedGlobal are Muslim and from
the Middle East themselves, but they can be found in any spot in the
world. He calls me from places, and I have run into him in places and
seen him. I just can't believe what this man does. He risks his life to
go to war zones to treat people who have been injured. I think so
highly of him.
He has a friend in Gaza--a friend, a doctor--who was highlighted in
the New York Times several days ago, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the
director of the pediatric ward at Kamal Adwan Hospital. Many of the
casualties from the Jabalia strikes were taken to that hospital. I read
this article, and I have reread it many times. I try to understand what
is happening on the ground in Gaza. Let me start at the beginning.
What the terrorist group Hamas did to Israel was an atrocity. The
attack on October 7 cannot be rationalized, explained, or, for that
matter, forgiven for what they did to the innocent victims in Israel.
The fact that Israel is defending itself is perfectly right in my eyes.
They have a right to do that. Of course, Hamas continues to be a
terrorist threat to them, and to try to stop Hamas and this activity is
understood.
At the same time, it is important that they accept the standards
which civilized nations accept even in the conduct of warfare. That is
the message that has been delivered by President Biden and again by
Antony Blinken, our Secretary of State, over and over: Be careful that
your ultimate reaction is consistent with the threat and used to the
basic standards of civilization. That has been a request over and over
again.
The reason I come to the floor is because I got a call this morning
from Dr. Sahloul, and he spoke this morning to Dr. Hussam again about
the situation at this hospital. What the doctor had to say is basically
what was in the article in The New York Times.
I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record at
this point.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Gaza Doctor Witnessing Nightmarish Situation
(By Hiba Yazbek and Karen Zraick)
The Jabaliya neighborhood north of Gaza City was pummeted
with Israeli airstrikes for a third consecutive day on
Thursday, while doctors treating the victims described
nightmarish scenes of operating without basic supplies or
anesthesia.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safyia, director of the pediatric ward at
Kamal Adwan Hospital, where many of the casualties from the
Jabaliya strikes were taken, said the majority of the people
arriving were children. Many were severely burned or were
missing limbs.
On Tuesday, after the first strike in Jabaliya, the
hospital received about 40 people who did not survive, and
250 others who were wounded, he said. The numbers were nearly
the same on Wednesday, when another strike hit. On Thursday,
a strike damaged a United Nations school being used as a
shelter and sent in another wave of patients: 10 dead and 80
others wounded.
``I've never in my life seen injuries this bad,'' Dr. Abu
Safyia said on Thursday by phone, adding, ``We saw children
without heads.''
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which runs
the school, said that the school had been among four of its
shelters--housing nearly 20,000 people total--that had been
damaged in the previous 24 hours. Twenty people were reported
to have been killed at the Jabaliya shelter, the agency said,
along with three people in other strikes at the Shati and
Bureij camps.
The Israeli military said that in its strikes on Jabaliya,
it had been targeting Hamas commanders who played key roles
in the attacks on Oct. 7, which Israeli officials said killed
more than 1,400 people. The military also said that Hamas had
an extensive tunnel network in Jabaliya.
On Wednesday, Dr. Abu Safyia said, he was working with a
colleague in the hospital's neonatal intensive-care unit--one
of two units that still had power amid a severe fuel
shortage--when casualties from Jabaliya started arriving.
[[Page S5388]]
When they rushed down to the emergency room to help, he
said, his colleague was stunned to see that two of her own
children were among the dead. Her 9-year-old and 7-year-old
had been killed in their home, he said, along with several of
her siblings and relatives.
``We are working at a place where at any moment we expect
our children, spouses, siblings or friends to come in in
pieces,'' he said.
Some children could not be identified because of the
severity of their injuries, he said. The hospital's morgue
was so full that people were stacking bodies on top of one
another.
``We wish for death,'' said Dr. Abu Safyia. ``It is easier
than seeing the horrific scenes we're witnessing.''
He later added: ``Live images are being broadcast to the
whole world of people blown up into pieces, of women and
children who are being murdered, for what? What did they do
wrong?''
The hospital, which is in the city of Beit Lahia, just
north of Jabaliya, was running extremely low on medical
supplies, like all others in the Gaza Strip, he said. With no
anesthesia, doctors were operating on people with severe
injuries using over-the-counter painkillers like paracetamol
to help ease the pain. They had a limited supply of
antibiotics and were using vinegar and chlorine to disinfect
wounds, the doctor added.
``The children's screams during surgeries can be heard from
outside,'' Dr. Abu Safyia said. ``We are operating on
people's skulls without anesthesia.''
Doctors and nurses were using the flashlights on their
phones to operate in the dark because a severe shortage of
fuel had left the hospital's generators able to power only
two departments--the neonatal intensive-care unit and the
pediatric emergency room, where 12 children are on
ventilators, he said. If the fuel runs out, he added, ``the
hospital will turn into a mass grave.''
Hours earlier, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesman for the
Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry, had held up the body of a
dead child wrapped in a shroud at a news conference at Al-
Shifa Hospital as he described the growing death toll.
The ministry said that more than 9,000 people had been
killed since the start of Israel's relentless bombardment of
Gaza, including more than 3,000 children. Many others remain
missing or buried under the rubble.
Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian plastic
surgeon volunteering at Shifa's burn treatment unit, said the
hospital--the largest in Gaza--had received about 70 patients
from the strikes on Jabaliya since Tuesday, and many had no
homes to return to.
Medical workers were being stretched to the breaking point,
and normally preventable deaths had begun to soar, he said.
Each surgery was turning into a grueling exercise of trying
to use the fewest resources possible, he said.
The Gazan Health Ministry said 16 of the 35 hospitals in
the Strip were already out of service from damage or lack of
power. The maternity ward at Shifa was being used to treat
the wounded, and expectant mothers had been moved to Al-Hilo
Hospital, which the ministry said was damaged by bombardment
on Wednesday night.
Communications with Gaza City remained spotty to
nonexistent on Thursday, after a blackout for much of
Wednesday left ambulances and rescue workers unable to find
the injured, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs said.
Ahmad Sardah, a Jabaliya resident who said his home had
been damaged by the strike on Wednesday, was able to send a
quick message during a fleeting moment of internet connection
before contact was lost again.
He said in a Facebook post he managed to write on Thursday:
``If only friends and relatives who are outside could tell us
what is going on around us instead of asking us how we are
doing, because without internet and phone lines, all we hear
is airstrikes and bombs. Where, how, why, and who? None of us
know.''
Dr. Ghassan Khatib, a political scientist at Birzeit
University in the occupied West Bank, said that Jabaliya--
both the name of a town and a refugee camp next to it--had a
reputation as a stronghold of resistance to Israeli
occupation for years.
The first intifada, an uprising that lasted from 1987 to
1993, started there after camp residents were run over by an
Israeli vehicle, he said. Their funerals became
demonstrations that spread to the Balata refugee camp in the
West Bank city of Nablus and elsewhere, he said.
Tamara Alrifai, an official with UNRWA, said in an online
briefing Thursday that the agency believed that about 30,000
of the Jabaliya camp's 116,000 residents had remained after
Israel's order to evacuate under threat of bombardment last
month. It was unclear whether they had all gone to the south,
as directed, or to other areas of northern Gaza.
People displaced throughout Gaza have flocked to hospitals,
hoping for a greater chance at safety. The Kamal Adwan
Hospital is also housing more than 3,000 displaced people.
Dr. Abu Safyia is among them, and barely sleeping. He said he
sometimes goes into an empty room, shuts the door and sobs.
``These are people who had dreams, they had lives, they had
a future,'' he said. ``It all ended.''
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, here is the situation reported from the
hospital in Gaza: They will be out of fuel and electricity in 24 hours.
Dr. Hussam told Dr. Sahloul that at this point, five children will die.
The ventilators that are keeping them alive will be turned off. They
cannot be transported to a better or a safer place. Turning off the
electricity in some areas of the hospital will cause great hardship and
pain. There is no fuel at the other hospitals either. In the north,
they have basically been cut off from any assistance. It is impossible
to transfer to the south because they don't have transportation, and
they don't have the wherewithal--the ambulances and such--to do so. The
desperate situation they have reached includes performing amputations
with no anesthesia--performing amputations with no anesthesia.
I asked Dr. Sahloul: What do they use?
He said: Tylenol.
Can you imagine? Tylenol? They use vinegar because they don't have
any access to iodine to be able to clean the wounds before the
operations. Vinegar.
Every day, 200 people show up at their hospital, sick from the
contaminated water which they are forced to drink. They are begging for
help. They are asking for a pause so that basics can be provided: food,
electricity, fuel, medicines--the basics. I don't think that is an
unreasonable request, and I am sorry that they have been turned down in
their efforts to get this kind of help. There are 150 patients in this
hospital--twice the number as usual--with many of them sleeping on the
floor. And surgeries are performed on the floor.
I read this article last Friday and kept a copy of it. Now I will
enter it into the Record for others to read as well.
At one point, Dr. Abu Safiya said:
We wish for death. It is easier than seeing the horrific
scenes we're witnessing.
Twice now, this refugee camp, Jabalia, has been attacked by the
Israelis as a site of Hamas terrorism. Unfortunately, on the first day
of the attack, 40 people did not survive and 250 others were brought to
the hospital. Then the attack took a second day but, basically, was the
same as the last.
The doctor said: I've never in my life seen injuries this bad. He
added: We saw children decapitated as a result of these attacks.
Asking for a pause in the war for the purpose of humanitarian relief
is not unreasonable; it is humane and civilized. The United States is
begging both sides to take that step. I will join that effort. I hope
that this ends well and soon.
In the meantime, these innocent, helpless victims need to have a
helping hand from the rest of the world. We need to provide the basics
so they can survive. I will do my best to follow this closely. I
encourage the United States to continue its efforts to ask for this
pause in the actions for relief of the victims. This sort of situation
in any part of the world cannot be ignored.
I yield the floor.
(Mr. MARKEY assumed the Chair.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Welch). The Senator from Massachusetts.