Some surgeries in the Gaza Strip were carried out without giving patients full anesthesia due to shortages of medical supplies, the non-governmental humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned today.

“We lack anaesthetics, we lack sedatives, we don’t have morphine. We do a lot of surgery with half the dose of anaesthesia, it’s horrible’, MSF head of mission in Jerusalem Leo Kans, who is responsible for the Palestinian Territories, told AFP. “Sometimes, some operations are done without anesthesia,” he added.

In the middle of this week, Kans described the amputation of a 10-year-old child’s leg, “on the hospital floor, in the corridor, because all the operating rooms were full.” The child had not been given full anesthesia. “His mother was there, his sister too. They were watching the operation (…) on the floor,” he added, referring to the photos and videos sent to him by the MSF teams.

He also mentioned the case of another child, 12 years old, who he has burns on 60% of his body and doctors have to change his gauze after giving him only paracetamol. “It’s hard to handle” for medical staff who are forced to prioritize, depending on the severity of the injuries.

Kans asked to stop the bombing immediately and send medicine to Gaza.

Among the victims there are “too many children and women and this makes us say that there are indiscriminate bombings,” he added.

Kans said he has some limited contact with MSF members in Gaza, thanks to two satellite phones. “It is almost impossible to coordinate our action after telecommunications in the Gaza Strip have been cut off” since Friday night, he said.

The Israeli army’s exhortation to residents to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip and head south is “like asking doctors to abandon their patients,” he explained. In any case “you can’t go anywhere where you’ll be safe” as the shelling is just as intense in the south, he argued.

MSF has around 230 workers in the Gaza Strip. Many have lost their homes and spend much of the day searching for water and food, Kans said. sounding the alarm about ‘water suitability’.