Muhammad was less than a week old before his entire family was killed in an attack in the Gaza Strip.
Now he is being cared for in the intensive care unit – while doctors struggle to meet the needs of the war-torn area.
– We don’t even have basic medical resources available to treat the injured, says doctor Ahmed Al-Kahlout.
The Kamal Adwan hospital is one of the hospitals where the lack of resources has become great since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out last October. The hospital’s oxygen department has been destroyed and several seriously ill patients have been moved to the intensive care unit. One of them is Muhammad, who was only a few days old when his entire family died in an Israeli attack.
– We do not have even basic medical resources available to treat the injured due to the ongoing power outages and the absence of a functioning solar power system at the hospital. Some children are on ventilators and when there is no electricity we have to manually use breathing balloons to give them oxygen, Ahmed Al-Kahlout, a doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told Reuters.
Many children affected
He says that several children have died as a result of the lack of respirators, and the war continues to claim the lives of the most vulnerable. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, over 43,000 have been killed in the war, most of them women and children, and over 100,000 have been injured.
– Of course there are many children who need these facilities and oxygen is still important.
Several attacks on the hospital
After being left alone after the attack, several relatives have now arrived at the hospital to care for Muhammad.
In the past month, the hospital has been subjected to several ground and air attacks. On October 24, the upper floors, where the intensive care unit is located, were heavily damaged and several children cared for there died as a result of the destruction, according to Reuters.
Last Friday, nearly 50 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the central part of the Gaza Strip. Including a five-month-old baby.
– We are ready to die. I didn’t die today, but I will definitely be killed tomorrow. No place is safe in the Gaza Strip, witness Abu Mohammed al-Taweel told Al Jazeera.