NUSEIRAT CAMP, Gaza Strip (Reuters) – His clinic destroyed during Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian dentist Najdat Saqr has retrieved equipment from the ruins and set up a tent to treat patients again.
“Around 80% of our work involves root canal treatment. As for anaesthesia, I do have this but it’s about to run out,” he said.
Saqr has just started seeing patients at the makeshift clinic he opened in a tent in Nuseirat refugee camp.
“After six months of war I decided that I must continue to work. Of course my (dental) centre was damaged from the bombardment – the Nuseirat roundabout was targeted repeatedly, resulting in damages to my centre,” he said.
“I took one of the chairs from the centre and I came here and set up a tent. I retrieved some equipment from under the rubble after (the centre) being targeted and I moved everything on a tuk-tuk from the clinic to here.”
Israel has laid waste to the Gaza Strip since launching an offensive in response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in the country’s south. The World Health Organization has said the health system in the Gaza Strip is barely surviving in the besieged territory.
The attack, led by the Islamist group Hamas, killed some 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, health authorities in Gaza say.
Saqr’s certificates of professional qualification hang proudly from the tent poles.
“I’ve got many certificates that I worked hard for, I grabbed them from my (damaged) centre, I thought I must have them here, hung behind me,” he said.
(Reporting by Doaa Rouqa; Writing by Bushra Shakhshir and Tom Perry; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
