Middle East War with Markus Lanz
“This widespread bombardment must stop”
By Marko Schlichting
December 13, 2023, 3:59 a.m
In Markus Lanz’s panel discussion, the guests deal with the crises of the year. A representative of Doctors Without Borders reports on the situation in the Gaza Strip. “What the relief workers are experiencing in the area seems almost unbearable,” he says.
A war has been raging in the Middle East since October 7th. On that day, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, devastated Israeli villages, killed people and took hostages. The Israeli army takes bloody revenge. Their goal: Hamas must be destroyed. It bombs the Gaza Strip, turning it into a field of rubble. She kills leaders of the terrorist organization Hamas. But according to Hamas, there are 30 to 40 civilians for every dead Hamas terrorist.
Tancred 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. “Our people are completely stunned and helpless,” he reports. What the relief workers are experiencing in the area seems almost unbearable. Last Wednesday, a hundred dead people were admitted to a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The number of bodies exceeded the number of injured people.
“The clinics are almost dysfunctional,” says Stöbe. There is a lack of everything: medicine, medical equipment, nurses, electricity.
The doctors work under unimaginable conditions. It is common for power to go out in the Gaza Strip, even in peacetime. People are used to it: in the event of a power outage, the diesel-powered emergency power generators would start immediately. But now there is no more diesel. The power goes out, and with it ventilators and operating lights. “Then they try to make do by using the flashlights on cell phones to turn on the light.”
Medicines rarely reach the Gaza Strip anymore. Stöbe: “You try to dilute the medication and, if in doubt, you also try to treat without anesthesia and without painkillers.” Even with amputations.
“You overdid it”
The Gaza Strip is dependent on external help, says Stöbe. “The country is too small to sustain itself.” In peacetime, 500 trucks came into the Gaza Strip every day, now there are perhaps a dozen – if that. It’s difficult to listen to another guest. Foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter from the CDU explains that Hamas started the war, Israel is just defending itself and that is its right. After all, it’s about the country’s existence. He doesn’t want to believe that Israel is breaking international law with its harsh actions against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, he also has to admit: “You exaggerated it.”
According to Stöbe, Doctors Without Borders, the International Red Cross and other aid organizations have been appealing for weeks to stop the bombing in the Gaza Strip – they are not being heard. Stöbe sounds desperate when he says: “It cannot be that people who have nothing to do with politics and this conflict lose their lives there.” That’s why his appeal: “This widespread 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 for me there is no political excuse for this to continue.” He doesn’t 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 continue!”