‘Total Collapse’: Gaza’s Ministry of Health Declares Major Disaster at Hospitals

October 24, 2023 News
Gaza's Ministry of Health announced the "total collapse" of the health system in all hospitals in the Strip. (Photo: Gaza's government media office)

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced the “total collapse” of the health system in all hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Aljazeera Arabic Channel reported.

Dr. Yousef Abu al-Rish, deputy minister of health in Gaza, said that the health system in the Gaza Strip has reached the stage of total collapse.

He added in an interview with Aljazeera that most of the medicines and medical supplies have run out, and the clinical capacity of hospitals has been shut down.

For his part, the director general of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Muhammad Zaqout, said that eight hospitals have stopped working since the start of the war.

Zaqout told Aljazeera that the punitive measures of the occupation threaten to cut off service to some major hospitals that are still open but are barely functioning.

The lack of fuel is creating a major disaster, he said.

For the 18th day, the Israeli army continues to target the Gaza Strip with intensive air raids that destroyed entire neighborhoods and caused thousands of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians.

With the gradual decline in the quantities of fuel that power hospital generators, the medical staff at the Indonesian hospital announced that the hospital in the Beit Lahia area, north of the Gaza Strip had no electricity.

Images showed scenes of total darkness as dozens of wounded people arriving at hospital during the blackout.

The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company called on all parties to work diligently and urgently for the rapid and continuous operation of electrical sources in the Gaza Strip.

The company said, in a statement, that the lack of electricity directly threatens to stop all vital sectors from working, thus increasing the suffering of people and endanger the lives of many, especially the wounded, sick and displaced.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it was still unable to distribute fuel or essential life-saving health supplies to major hospitals in northern Gaza due to a lack of security guarantees from Israel.

The organization called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire so that health supplies and fuel can be safely delivered throughout the Gaza Strip.”

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned that if fuel did not enter the Strip, aid deliveries, water desalination and hospitals would stop on Wednesday.

Aid trucks began moving into Gaza from Egypt on Saturday after intense diplomatic efforts, but agencies say they are woefully inadequate.

Protesting UNRWA, Distraught Doctor, Note to a Friend – GAZA IN PHOTOS

Half of the territory’s 2.3 million people are homeless, many have been injured, and there is a lack of food and clean water.

Jeremy Lawrence, spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the aid that resumed from Egypt over the weekend was just a drop in the ocean of what was needed.

Brian Lander, deputy head of emergencies at the World Food Program, said that supporting Gazans required about 465 trucks of humanitarian aid a day before the war erupted.

(AJA, PC)

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