Both facilities and staff are stretched to the limit.

According to Dr Mauro, a surgeon with the ICRC medical team working in Al Shifa Hospital, most of the patients treated are civilians. "We have many casualties every day, most of them are civilians. We took care of very few combatants."

Typical of the patients brought to AL Shifa is 15 year old Mahmoud, who was injured by an explosion just outside his home in Gaza City. His mother Randa waits for news as he is treated in the Intensive Care Unit. According to the latest figures provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, just under 50 per cent of all wounded people currently arriving at Gaza hospitals are women and children.

ICRC medical staff report that there are not enough intensive care beds for the most seriously injured patients. "We have already extended to double the amount of intensive care beds … but still it's not enough," says Alice Nielson, ICRC intensive care nurse.

Most hospitals in the Strip continue to run on generators 24 hours a day to keep life-saving equipment operating without interruption. Shifa Hospital is running low on fuel, which is putting treatment of 470 patients at risk, including 60 currently being cared for in the intensive care unit.

Today, (13 January 2009) the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jakob Kellenberger, has travelled to Israel and the occupied territories for a three-day visit . The president wants to witness at first hand the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and this afternoon visited patients and medical teams in Shifa Hospital.

Mr Kellenberger will also hold talks with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Shotlist

Date, location: 9 January 2009, Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza
Production: ICRC
Sound: English, Arabic
Copyright: ICRC – Access All
length: 3'24"

00 00 Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza City, ambulance arriving

00 03 Interiors with patients on trolley

00 09 Exteriors

00 17 Injured patients on trolleys

00 25 Doctors inside hospital

00 29 Interview Dr Mauro, ICRC surgeon (English)

"…Many casualties … every day, most of them are civilians. We took care of very few combatants. So every day we have to face the reality that most of these patients are civilians.

There is an incredible variety of injuries, extremely bad injuries, most of them due to blast injuries, devastating to all the body, mostly the limbs but what we saw every day is the number of young patients injured at the head, with many penetrating head trauma. And all of them are young patients."

01 24 Intensive care unit – shots of Mahmoud Batal, 15 year old boy injured by blast

01 33 Interview Randa Matar, mother of 15 year old boy in ICU, (Arabic)

"He was playing outside, and then he heard a loud noise, he went to see what had happened and he was hit in the face. People should come and see our children who are dying from hunger, and from the bombings."

01 46 Intensive care unit with close-ups of badly injured patients

02 10 Interview Alice Nielson, ICRC intensive care nurse, (English)

"We have very big problems to cope with the patients who need intensive care because we do not have enough bed space and we have already extended to double the amount of intensive care beds. In a normal ICU ward there are 12 beds but we have made other rooms into ICU units so we have 22 beds at the moment but still it's not enough."

02 33 Alice working with patients

02 51 Various inside hospital, doctors and patients in crowded corridors.

03 20 More patients arrive for treatment

03 24 ENDS