A doctor who had been working in Gaza until his evacuation to Ireland last week has said there is nothing left there.

Deputy Medical Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said he did not recognise the streets of Rafah while he was being evacuated as they were just rubble.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said hospitals are collapsing one by one.

“The population now in the north area has an evacuation order to move to the south. One million people are struggling to move,” he said.

“They are asking them to move to the south area, which was called the humanitarian zone, which is between brackets. It’s not a humanitarian zone.

“The hospitals are collapsing one by one, which are in the north. Patients are actually in these hospitals, are lying on the floor there. There is no beds at all.”

Dr Mughaisib said hospitals are functioning without electricity because there is no fuel to run the generators.

He said they desperately need drugs and disposables to operate and treat patients.

“So doctors now are consulting the patient without giving any treatment because there is no more treatment,” he said.

“The population still are struggling to find shelters, which there is no space, there is no tents, struggling to find water.

“There is no term to describe what’s going on in Gaza … there is neighborhoods erased from the planet.”

‘Acute hunger’

Dr Mughaisib said he was “lucky” because he managed to evacuate his family to Cairo while he stayed in Gaza and moved around.

“I used the electricity unit room to put my mattress [in]. I mean, that was your life – your mattress, your pillow, and your documents,” he said, adding that while he was able to afford food because he was working, there was no food to buy.

“It was a kind of luxury to find bread and to buy it, it’s very expensive. The cost of one bread was €5 … I can afford it, I’m still working,” he said.

“But imagine the population that 80% of them are in poverty. They were really children … crying in the tent because their families cannot provide for the milk or food, and they were crying because of hunger, and they sleep because they get tired from crying, so they sleep.

“There was acute hunger. Famine – I was not waiting to declare the famine in Gaza because we witnessed it, me and my colleagues who are working with MSF.”

Dr Mughaisib explained that he applied through MSF Ireland to come here “and the Irish government and embassy really facilitated my work papers”.

He said the evacuation was well organised by the Irish Embassy, but the trip itself inside Gaza was “really horrible”.

“When I entered some areas in Gaza during the evacuation, I didn’t recognise Rafah, I didn’t recognise Khan Yunis. It was just rebels,” he said.

“And the tanks, of course, are there. They were blocking the road but they open it and they allow the convoy, but I didn’t recognise none of these streets of Rafah and Khan Yunis that I know it by heart.

“I’m living there for 25 years so I know Gaza by heart. I didn’t recognise no street.”

Dr Mughaisib said he has not seen his family in over 18 months and would like to be reunited with them.

He said he has found it “very strange” to be in Ireland.

“I have really mixed feelings. It’s very difficult to wake up without the sound of the drones, the shelling, the bombing. And I left all my memories there,” he said.

“I have friends, colleagues, families there that are. I know that they are still suffering and they wanted to be evacuated, to be in security.

“But it’s difficult. I still have my heart, my soul is there. Physically, I’m here, but my heart and soul is there.”

Read more:
Situation in Gaza City ‘like a horror movie’, says doctor
‘It’s an act of piracy’ – Irish activist on Gaza aid flotilla slams drones targeting boats
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PTSB is to cut its fixed-rate mortgage by up to 0.2% and make changes to its deposit rates, including increases and decreases.

The bank has announced a reduction of 0.15% to 0.2% on a range of fixed-rate mortgage products from periods of two years to seven years, which will take effect from today.

PTSB said the rate decreases will apply to mortgages where the loan-to-value (LTV) is between 80% and 90%.

It includes green mortgages and high-value mortgages, both of which offer lower rates in this LTV band.

The new rates for a 2-year, 3-year, 5-year and 7-year fixed terms in the 80% and 90% LTV band will range from 3.7% to 4.4%, depending on the fixed-rate period.

The lender said the rates will be available to both new customers and existing customers, who want to take out a new fixed-rate product.

“The new rate for the 4-year fixed term of 3.65%, which is a rate-only product, is available to new customers only,” PTSB said.

It said the 80% to 90% LTV band is “particularly popular among First-Time Buyers, but the improved rates will be available to First-Time Buyers, switchers from other lenders and people moving house.”

PTSB has also announced changes to deposit rates, which will come into effect from 1 October, and will be available to both new and existing personal customers.

The changes will apply to the bank’s 6-month, 1-year, 3-year and 5-year fixed-term deposit products, including the 6-month and 1-year online fixed-term deposit products.

The 5-year fixed-term deposit will increase by 0.5% to 2%, and the 3-year fixed-term deposit will increase by 0.40% to 2%.

However, PTSB said its 1-year and 6-month fixed-term deposit accounts, which include online and interest first equivalents, will decrease by 0.25% to 2% and 1.25% respectively.

The lender said that customers who have recently taken out a new fixed term deposit have a cooling off period of up to 14 days, which will allow them to switch their deposit to benefit from new lower rates, before the relevant cooling off period expires.

A new communication network is being tested for first responders after an older system failed during Storm Éowyn earlier this year.

Storm Éowyn brought a record-breaking mean wind speed of 135km/h at Ceann Mhása in Galway, along with gusts measuring 183km/h at the same weather station.

768,000 homes, businesses and farms across Ireland were left without power as a result of the storm on 24 January.

Around 115,000 homes were left without water, with hundreds of thousands more under threat as a result of the power outages.

The Government’s Chief Information Officer Barry Lowry said today that emergency responders used an old system called TETRA Ireland which are “essentially like walkie talkies” with push to talk phones.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said: “What we wanted to do is replace them with smartphone capability.

“Everybody knows the importance of smartphone for data, for video, for voice. But actually enabling that for blue light services provides what we call full situational awareness.

“In other words, far more data and information that they can use and share in the event of dealing with a major incident.”

Mr Lowry said that while TETRA, which stands for Terrestrial Trunked Radio, did not collapse during the storm, it lost its full national connectivity as the fiber it depends on came down due to a lack of power.

However, the new network uses a smartphone-like capability that can fall back to satellite technology as a last resort.

“So where we are moving to is always on mobile phone capability for our emergency services.

“We have tested the new capability in the air, sea and on land and the responses coming back have been very positive,” he said.

Mr Lowry said the absolute priority is to bring the new system to the islands.

The first satellite service should be available for use in Inishturk by the end of the year before being rolled out to the rest of the islands throughout 2026, he said, and ultimately, it is hoped it will be available everywhere in the country.

He said the project to date has being co funded by the EU but added that “no cost is insignificant if it saves lives”.