TONY LAURANCE is Chief Executive of British charity Medical Aid for Palestine (Map). He has worked in Gaza for nearly seven years, first with the World Health Organisation and now with Map.

He tells the Star: “You cannot maintain a proper and effective hospital and healthcare system in conditions of siege and isolation. Even though essential medical supplies can be imported, there are other difficulties.”

After eight years of siege and military offensives, all the hospitals in Gaza are in a desperate condition. 

Laurance says: “There has been very little maintenance and the equipment frequently malfunctions. There are power cuts every day lasting up to 18 hours. The generators that they rely upon have not been maintained. They are running short of fuel. Staff don’t receive proper training because they are isolated from the rest of the world. They are running short of disposables. The situation’s not helped by cuts to water supplies. Hospitals have not expanded to cope with a growing population.” 

He could have gone on, but I’d got the picture.

There are some things you can never forget. As a journalist, there are some people you remember for ever.

Just over a week ago, when I spoke to Fikr Shallitt, the medical aid co-ordinator for Map in Gaza City, there was little hope of a lasting ceasefire. 

But situations change quickly in Gaza and we have seen the beginning and the end of a settlement. 

Some 426 children, 255 women and 1,100 men have died over the past few weeks.

There were hopes that the truce would allow a period of reconstruction, but sadly these were dashed in the early hours of Friday morning and God alone knows when a lasting peace will come.

Some 9,893 have been wounded, many innocent civilians, women and children who have nowhere to run to as both Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces battle for supremacy. 

Egypt has closed its borders, and from the river to the sea it’s like shooting fish in barrel. 

Some 10,606 homes have been destroyed. Israeli forces have attacked 132 mosques, 42 of which have been reduced to rubble. Six universities, 188 schools, 12 hospitals and 19 financial institutions have been flattened. Some 315 factories are inoperable, 52 fishing boats sunk, the only power plant has been destroyed. 

An estimated 200,000 people have either fled or had their homes destroyed. 

Most of the water pipelines have been crushed. Raw sewage is pumping into the sea and clean water wells. Seventy per cent are without clean drinking water. There is no water for washing, bathing, cleaning or sanitation. Families club together to buy 20-gallon drums of water from street vendors. 

A single crossing funnels everything that the 1.8 million people living in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet require. 

Eighty per cent are dependent on aid for their day-to-day needs. Time is running out before there is a mass epidemic of disease, hunger and infection.

There is an urgent humanitarian and medical need to restore water and power supplies and effect a lasting ceasefire.

Laurance says wearily: “It’s a mess, it’s a terrible mess. It’s a humanitarian disaster.” And as he speaks, the words to describe the impact of the sheer force of the latest attacks fail him.

Fikr tells me: “Honestly, I believe, and everybody in Gaza thinks they might be targeted and every night. When I might be killed and when I go to sleep, I am not sure if I will wake up or my home will be destroyed.”  

The killing, the impact of massive power firing on this tiny strip of land from all directions, on land, air and sea will take its toll, not just now but in future. Fikr says that absolutely everyone will need psycho-social support if they come out of this alive.

She describes the carnage, saying: “It is so so difficult. It’s a nightmare. You can’t imagine, even in your bad dreams, you can’t imagine living in this situation. 

“You have heard about the thousands, the children during the air strike, the tons of explosives that have dropped on this small area. 

“Unfortunately the majority of the victims were civilians, children attacked in their houses, attacked, killed in the UN shelters. Even the shelters, the displaced people in these shelters were attacked. Even the hospitals, the medical teams, the mosques.” 

The words tumble from her mouth, no time to construct sentences, as an endless list of horror, death and helplessness sketch the scene.

At Al-Shiffa hospital, patients pile up in the corridors because of the overwhelming number of injuries. 

Within minutes of one attack, staff coped with 200 casualties and undertook 60 surgeries. 

Staff tried to find spaces at other hospitals, but the number of people in the hospital continued to grow into what is now a makeshift refugee camp. People who could be discharged have nowhere to go. 

Outside the hospital, but still within the grounds, Fikr estimates that there are about 2,000 people living in small tents made from blankets and mattresses distributed by aid agencies. 

After Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, Map pre-positioned basic hygiene kits which consist of toiletries and basic medical items — bandages, antiseptic and so on — in warehouses across Gaza to assist displaced families seeking refuge in shelters and hospitals across the troubled region. 

With the demand for supplies to alleviate displacement, hunger, trauma and infection running high, Gazans need the help and support of the international community if a genocide is to be avoided.

Fikr says: “When they evacuated from east Gaza City — now in ruins — they couldn’t imagine they would remain alive and they are severely traumatised. So it’s a very, very tense situation. 

“We have shortages. Medical teams are working 24 hours. At the same time, there are these people inside the hospital and at least 30 of these children have meningitis and gastroenteritis because the conditions are very difficult.”

Conflict medicine is complex with often surprising demands.

Medical staff have been working in terrible conditions in war settings for more than a century, but without basic essential equipment — sutures, antiseptic, anaesthetics — doctors make do with what they have got. 

Laurance says that can affect the lasting disabilities that many of the injured are bound to suffer. 

Medics in Gaza are world leaders in emergency medicine, but the subsequent follow-up to repair the damage to organs and limbs is another story. 

Laurance says: “There are staff there able to do it, but not on the same level that are available internationally with some specialties at the moment.” 

Map has appealed for suitably qualified staff to offer to help, but the area remains a battlefield.

Laurance says: “Many patients have now recovered from emergency surgery and are ready to be discharged. They will certainly need medical care and nursing care but they have no homes to go back to — some don’t have families to go back to. There is nowhere for them to be discharged to. That is a terrible issue. 

“In the UK, our hospitals have no free beds. Well, in Gaza it’s many, many times worse. Without any of the systems of social workers, ambulances, social services. That is a desperate additional problem that they are facing at the moment which the international community needs to help with.”

As I talk to Fikr across a telephone line which frequently cuts out, the message is clear that that governments need to listen to public opinion and act. 

Fikr says: “The people of Gaza are looking for you to put some pressure to stop what is happening because its really, really unjust. All people want to do is live their lives. They have dreams, they only want to live peacefully, have normal lives, jobs and a little dignity. 

“They are tired of living on food aid and support from here and there. We expect the international community to stand and say stop, it’s too much. 

“They have to let people here in Gaza live normal lives. It’s not just about humanitarian aid because it’s not solving any problems. 

“Of course it can support people at the time of the crisis and then they rush and bring some aid in — what about after that? Everybody will disappear again. 

“The majority just come to give us aid and then they leave. People want normal lives, to live peacefully and to get support from the international community. This is what we expect from the British government and all the countries in the world.”

Laurance agrees, saying that there now has to be a lasting ceasefire and new policy on Gaza to bring peace and stability. 

He says: “It can happen. It must happen. I don’t think it is such a tall order. This is the third such war. You can’t just stop it and watch everything go around in a cycle and another war in a few years.”

But in Britain, that’s exactly what our government is doing.