2023-10-25 15:43:55
After 19 days of Israeli bombing and an almost complete siege, the health system in the Gaza Strip is facing “the danger of collapse,” due to the depletion of water and fuel needed to operate generators, and the suffering of medical staff from the absence of health and treatment supplies, according to Palestinian officials who spoke to Al-Hurra website.
On the verge of collapse
The spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ashraf Al-Qudra, speaks of “a complete collapse of the health system in Gaza,” attributing this to “the inability of the hospitals currently operating in the Strip to accommodate the huge number of wounded and injured, the lack of human staff, the running out of water and fuel, and the absence of treatments and all supplies.” “Medical”.
Al-Qudra revealed that 73 medical personnel were killed, more than 150 others were injured, and others worked in “tragic conditions,” and thus the health system is now operating at less than 30 percent of the capacity of the human staff, as Al-Qudra tells the “Al-Hurra” website.
In Gaza, 25 ambulances were destroyed, 12 hospitals and 32 health centers were completely out of service, and in the rest of the centers and hospitals “there is no water, fuel, or treatment,” according to a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Al-Qudra says that hospitals operating in the sector are witnessing overcrowding with patients, wounded, and displaced people, prompting medical teams to treat the wounded in the corridors and on the floors.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that more than a third of hospitals in Gaza and about two-thirds of primary health care clinics were closed due to damage or lack of fuel.
????According to Ministry of Health, over 5,000 people have been killed in????#Gaza since 7 October – including 2,055 children.
????@UNRWA will run out of fuel TOMORROW night – forcing us to halt operations and delivery of humanitarian aid to people in need. pic.twitter.com/TM4sgX5Msw
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 24, 2023
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned in a post on the X platform (formerly Twitter) that it would stop its operations in Gaza on Wednesday evening due to the fuel shortage.
Since the outbreak of the war, a few dozen trucks loaded with basic materials have been allowed to enter from the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza through the Rafah crossing, but they are not sufficient to meet the needs, according to relief agencies.
The aid included medicines, food, and water, but not fuel, at a time when Mark Regev, an advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced to CNN, “We have no interest at the present time in the Hamas military machine receiving more fuel, and we did not allow fuel.”
The Israeli army said, on Wednesday, that there are fuel tanks inside Gaza holding more than 500,000 liters of fuel, in a post on the X platform (formerly Twitter), which stated: “Ask Hamas if you can get some of it.”
“Serious” medical condition
On Saturday, limited deliveries of food, medicine and water began from Egypt via Rafah, the only crossing not controlled by Israel, according to Archyde.com.
Late Tuesday night, 20 more trucks entered, but UN agencies said more than 20 times more than current supplies were needed for the narrow coastal enclave’s 2.3 million people who rely heavily on aid even in peacetime.
Speaking to Al-Hurra website, the spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent, Muhammad Al-Fityani, described the situation of the health system in Gaza as “dangerous,” given that hospitals and medical centers lack all the requirements to deal with the “huge” number of infections.
Electricity is cut off in the Gaza Strip, and all hospitals are running on generators that rely on fuel that is about to expire, and there is no way to replace “stocks of treatments, medicines, and medical supplies” when they run out, according to a spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent.
He stresses that “if these requirements are not met, the entire medical system in Gaza is at risk of being out of service, which is a disaster.”
He points out the accumulation of injured and injured people in hospitals and medical centers, in conjunction with the absence of many treatments and medications, which forces medical teams to “prefer treating cases at the expense of others.”
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization warned that “thousands of vulnerable patients will be at risk of death or medical complications as vital services stop due to a lack of electricity,” according to “United nations“.
Among these, 1,000 patients depend on dialysis, 130 premature babies require care, as well as patients in intensive care or needing surgery and need a stable and uninterrupted supply of electricity to survive.
Relief agencies say that hospitals are working beyond capacity and electricity generators are lacking fuel, while about 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of the population of the Strip, have been displaced from the north to escape the bombing or under an ultimatum issued by Israel to evacuate Gaza City, according to Agence France-Presse.
“Exhausted” medical staff
Muhammad Al-Fityani talks about the medical staff suffering from “exhaustion,” and Al-Qudra agrees with him, who confirms that medical workers are “unable to provide significant services to the sick, wounded, and injured.”
Despite this, medical teams try to reach hospitals and health centers via motorcycle, bicycle, or on foot, but 70 percent of them are “unable to perform their work tasks,” according to Al-Qudra.
Israel began bombing Gaza and imposed a comprehensive siege, after a Hamas attack on military sites and residential areas adjacent to the Strip on October 7, which caused the death of 1,400 people, most of them civilians, including women and children, in addition to the kidnapping of about 200 others.
The death toll in Gaza as a result of the continuous Israeli bombing since the start of the war on October 7 has risen to 6,546 people, most of whom are civilians, including women and children, according to what the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday.
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