The Israeli occupation continues to prevent the entry of medicines and medical devices into the Gaza Strip

Occupied Jerusalem (ST): The Israeli occupation is tightening the cycles of its siege imposed nearly 16 years ago on the Gaza Strip by preventing the entry of medicines, medical devices and spare parts needed to repair the broken ones, including the oxygen stations needed to combat the Coronavirus, which threatens the lives of Gaza patients, especially with the outbreak of the fourth wave of the pandemic, in light of the neglect of the international community and silence towards the continuous violations of international law and human rights.

In a statement, Dr. Raafat Al-Majdalawi, director of the Union of Health Work Committees in the Gaza Strip, explained that the occupation deliberately sabotaged and paralyzed the hospitals of the Strip, which provide services to about 2.3 million people, by preventing the entry of medical devices, especially diagnostic equipment for intensive care, nurseries, orthopedic, chest diseases, and respiratory screening centers, in addition to preventing the entry of spare parts for more than 22 broken medical devices and did not allow them to be maintained abroad, noting that the occupation was not satisfied with that, but rather increased the suffering of patients by preventing them from leaving the Strip to receive treatment in West Bank hospitals, which caused the death of many of them and worsened the health situation of thousands for not receiving appropriate treatment.

Al-Majdalawi pointed out that more than 12,000 patients in medical centers are on waiting lists due to the lack of equipment needed to perform surgical operations, and that most international medical companies withdrew their agencies due to their inability to supply medical devices due to the occupation’s refusal to do so, which plunged hospitals and patients into a new crisis that added to the crisis of Corona outbreak.

Al-Majdalawi stressed that the health sector in Gaza is threatened with collapse as a result of the Israeli siege, and its credit has become zero in many medicines, calling on all free people in the world and international health institutions to pressure the occupation to bring in medicines, medical devices and supplies to save the lives of thousands of patients in the Strip.

For his part, Director of Al-Awda Hospital, Ahmed Muhanna, indicated that the hospital has the only color-ray machine in the northern Gaza Strip, which has been out of action for a long time due to the lack of spare parts and the refusal of the occupation to enter them or even import new devices, in addition to the lack of an oxygen station, where reliance on cylinders is insufficient to provide services to patients in light of the continuous rise in the number of corona infections, pointing out that the acute shortage of endoscopy devices, drugs and medicines for chronic diseases made the work of hospitals limited to providing the minimum services for patients, which foreshadows a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged sector.

K.Q.