Iran Press/ West Asia: Minister of Health Mai Alkaila said today that only a trickle of the essential medical supplies has arrived in the Gaza Strip, calling for an immediate end to the month-long Israeli war on the besieged sea enclave.
Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah held in the presence of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, and a number of international and national health organizations and institutions, Alkaila stressed the need to urgently allow humanitarian and health supplies into the Gaza Strip, warning of the impact of the aggression on the health of the Palestinian population.
“The daily consumption of medicines and medical consumables during the aggression on the Gaza Strip is equivalent to the monthly consumption of the centers and hospitals in Gaza, and therefore the volume of supplies and trucks that crossed into the Gaza Strip is a drop in the ocean of the increasing medical needs as a result of the ongoing brutal aggression,” said the Health Minister.
“A whole month of killing, massacres and crimes. Children are still being killed in their beds or places of refuge. Pregnant mothers are killed along with their fetuses. There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip. Even hospitals that international law and international humanitarian law stipulate are protected, Israel violated their sanctity and killed the sick, wounded, displaced, and doctors in them. Ambulances were also bombed and doctors and patients in them were killed. Shelter centers were destroyed over the heads of those fleeing to them. The bloodshed is still happening... and the world is watching,” said the Health Minister.
“So far, there are more than 10,400 martyrs due to the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip and more than 25,000 wounded, many of them in critical condition. These numbers do not reflect reality, as a large number of bodies and wounded are still under the rubble,” she added.
“More than 70% of the martyrs were children, women and the elderly. As for the missing, the number reached about 2,350 civilians, including more than 1,300 children, which means that the death toll rises significantly as the days pass and the rubble is removed.”
Alkaila said that to date, 192 health personnel and 36 civil defense personnel were killed, and 50 ambulances were damaged, including 40 that stopped working completely. The number of hospitals that were out of service reached 18, out of 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and 51 health centers out of 72 primary healthcare centers stopped working due to damage caused by the bombing or lack of fuel.
She pointed out the issue of the displacement of more than one and a half million people, equivalent to 70% of the population of the Gaza Strip. “They live homeless in shelter centers, schools, hospitals and public places that lack the minimum necessities of life, which threatens the spread of diseases and epidemics.”
There are also 350,000 patients suffering from non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and others, she said. There are at least 1,050 cases of kidney failure in need of daily and urgent dialysis, more than 2,000 cancer patients, and 130 newborns in incubators. There are more than 5,000 births per month in the Gaza Strip, and more than 50,000 pregnant women, who do not receive the necessary medical and health care, which puts their lives at risk, stressed the Health Minister.
214
Read More:
Gaza extensively destroyed; rubbles smell blood
Nasrallah to deliver a speech on Saturday on Hezbollah Martyr’s Day
Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises to 10,328 including 4,237 childre
