The French military helicopter carrier Dixmude has been transformed into a hospital to treat wounded civilians from Gaza, many of them children, as Western countries look to ramp up efforts to aid the beseiged enclave.
The warship has been anchored since 27 November in the Egyptian port of Al-Arich, some 50 kilometres from the Rafah crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
The Dixmude, the first Western military ship to treat civilians from Gaza, has also been joined by an Italian ship.
"We are in discussion with a number of European countries, in particular our British, German and other partners, to see how we can continue this organisation," said French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who was on board the ship on New Year's Eve.
Most of the injured have already received treatment in Gaza, where the health system has been badly affected by the war between Israel and Hamas.
Those wounded "have particularly serious complications", Lecornu added.
Military-civilian team
The Dixmude's medical capacities have been adapted to create a military-civilian medical force, notably in paediatrics, with two operating theatres and 40 beds, a treatment room for severe burns, scanners and analysis laboratories.
Seventy civilian and military doctors and nurses are treating some 100 people injured in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Among them is 10-year-old Maher, who has the name of Paris-Saint-Germain striker Kylian Mbappé written in black on a plaster cast around his right leg.
Maher's left leg was amputated and his right tibia fractured when his house near Rafah was bombed.
His mother, Shaima El Hijazi, spoke to the French news agency AFP on the warship, where the wounded are bedded down in tents.
Shaima's husband died in the explosion. "I want to go to the United Arab Emirates so that my son can have an artificial limb," she said.
Near Maher, other children in wheelchairs are playing ball with carers in white coats in front of a group of injured mothers.
Children shellshocked
The children are shellshocked when they arrive on the Dixmude, says Pierre, a paediatrician.
"We're out of our usual comfort zone because we're dealing with war wounds, serious burns, children who are amputees, with severe fractures and external fixations and visible pins," Pierre explains.
"But we manage to offer them a bubble of serenity and comfort on this boat before they leave for an Egyptian hospital or an Arab country that will take care of them."
Israeli operations in Gaza have left more than 21,600 people dead and more than 56,100 wounded, the majority of them women and children, according to Gaza rulers Hamas.
The group says only 1 percent of the wounded have been evacuated abroad from the Rafah crossing.
The Israeli army is carrying out air and ground operations in Gaza in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas, which left around 1,140 people dead, most of them civilians.
Israel says 129 hostages are still being held.
(with AFP)
