"This blanket bombardment must stop"
Just like the day before on Hart aber fair, the guests on the ZDF talk show Markus Lanz will discuss the crises of the year on Tuesday evening. One guest reports on the situation in the Gaza Strip.
A war has been raging in the Middle East since October 7. On that day, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, devastated Israeli villages, killed people and took hostages. The Israeli army took bloody revenge. Its goal: Hamas must be destroyed. It bombs the Gaza Strip, turning it into a field of rubble. It kills leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization. But for every Hamas terrorist killed, there are 30 to 40 civilians, according to their own figures.
Tankred Stöbe is a doctor. He has been working for the aid organization "Doctors Without Borders" in crisis areas for many years. On Tuesday evening, the doctor, who has worked twice in the Gaza Strip, will be a guest on the ZDF talk show Markus Lanz.
Operations under the flashlight
300 "Doctors Without Borders" employees are currently working in the Gaza Strip, says Stöbe. "There is absolute bewilderment and helplessness among our people," he reports. What the aid workers are experiencing in the area seems almost unbearable. Last Wednesday, for example, a hundred dead people were admitted to a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The number of corpses exceeded the number of injured.
"The clinics are almost dysfunctional," says Stöbe. There is a lack of everything: medicines, medical equipment, nurses, electricity.
The doctors work under unimaginable conditions. It is common for the electricity to fail in the Gaza Strip, even when there is peace. People are used to this: in the event of a power cut, the diesel-powered emergency generators start up immediately. But now there is no more diesel. The power fails, and with it the ventilators - or operating lights. "People then try to make do by using the flashlights on their cell phones to provide light."
Medicines rarely reach the Gaza Strip. Stöbe: "They try to dilute the medication and, if in doubt, they also try to treat without anesthesia and without painkillers." Even with amputations.
"They have overdone it"
The Gaza Strip is dependent on external aid, says Stöbe. "The country is too small to keep itself alive." In peacetime, 500 trucks came into the Gaza Strip every day, now there are perhaps a dozen - if that. This makes it difficult to listen to another guest. Foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter from the CDU explained that Hamas had started the war, Israel was only defending itself and that was its right. After all, the existence of the country was at stake. He does not want to admit that Israel is breaking international law with its harsh actions against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, even he has to admit: "They have overdone it."
According to Stöbe, "Doctors Without Borders", the International Red Cross and other aid organizations have been appealing for a halt to the bombardment of the Gaza Strip for weeks - but they are not being heard. Stöbe sounds desperate when he says: "It is unacceptable that people who have nothing to do with politics and this conflict are losing their lives there." Hence his appeal: "This blanket bombardment must stop." In the last two months, 17,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians. Stöbe: "That is not tolerable. And there is no political excuse for me to allow this to continue." He does not want to deny Israel's right to exist. "But as a compassionate doctor who knows these people in Gaza, I can only say: this must not go on!"
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Source: www.ntv.de
