Indonesian staff at Gaza hospital ‘resigned to fate’ as Israelis close in

At this time of the year, it should be strawberry season in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the fields traditionally planted with strawberries in September and harvested from November are now battlefields.

One of the most fertile regions for Palestine’s renowned strawberries is Beit Lahia, with its good climate, rich soil and high-quality water supplies.

Located in north Gaza, Beit Lahia is also the home of the Indonesia Hospital where medical volunteer from Indonesia Fikri Rofiul Haq is based with the Indonesian humanitarian organisation the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C).

“The Israeli forces have been bombing fields across the Gaza Strip and a lot of crops have died”, Haq told Al Jazeera.

“This year, there won’t be the usual produce like strawberries, even though it is the winter season,” he said.

Amid the horror of Israel’s war on Gaza, the destruction of Palestine’s strawberry harvest  may seem insignificant.

But for Haq – one of three Indonesian MER-C volunteers based at the Indonesia Hospital – the memory of Gaza’s strawberries helps him cope. Each day is now a matter of survival in the territory, where Israel is now concentrating its attacks on hospitals.

“At the beginning of the war, we were still able to get some goods from the area around the hospital, like vegetables and instant noodles, but now it is impossible to get fresh produce like onions, tomatoes and cucumbers,” he said, speaking to Al Jazeera through WhatsApp voice messages.

“At the Indonesia Hospital now, staff only get a meal once a day at lunchtime, which is provided by [the neighbouring] Al-Shifa Hospital. For breakfast and dinner, staff eat biscuits or dates,” he said.Conditions at both the Indonesian and Al-Shifa hospitals, as well as other hospitals in Gaza, have seriously deteriorated since Al Jazeera last spoke to Haq on Friday.

Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, warned on Saturday that hundreds of injured people as well as newborn babies needed to be urgently transported to an operational medical facility as his hospital was crumbling under the strain of a lack of fuel and medicine – as well as Israeli bombardments.

“It’s a tragedy. The dead bodies – we can’t put them in freezers as they’re not functioning so we decided to dig a pit in the vicinity of the hospital. It’s a very inhumane scene. The situation is totally out of control. Hundreds of bodies are decomposing,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera.

Atef al-Kahlot, the director of the Indonesia Hospital, said his facility is operating only at between 30-40 percent of capacity and he made an appeal for the world to help.

“We call on the honourable people of the world, if any of them are left, to put pressure on the occupation forces to supply the Indonesian Hospital and the rest of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip,” he said.