[
A press release issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health – Gaza.
Gaza’s health crews excelled themselves during the Zionist escalation on the Gaza Strip, in both readiness and preparedness.
Without their dedication and professional response to the Israeli aggression and serial crimes committed in the Gaza Strip over the past two days, the toll would undoubtedly have been higher – a toll that includes 27 martyrs (two pregnant women, two infants, two women and a child) plus injuries to 177 citizens, including 42 children and 46 women.
The Israeli occupation practiced the worst forms of terrorism and racism, venting their fury on families in the safety of their owns homes, and focusing on infants and pregnant women, adding them to their bank of targets. In light of these developments, we refer to the following:
1. All greetings and tribulations to our Palestinian people who remain steadfast in the face of an occupier who knows only the language of murder and terrorism.
2.Our national and moral duty towards our people drives us to be always at the highest levels of readiness and preparedness in the health facilities, ambulance units, and emergency systems in the Gaza Strip.
3.The Emergency Operations Command and the Higher Central Emergency Committees closely and constantly followed developments in the field, and remained on alert to monitor the work of the health system and rapidly respond, to provide health care to our people around the clock.
4.The dedicated medical staff made supreme efforts to provide health services, especially for emergency cases and to save lives with the scarce resources available, and in the absence of drug supply from the warehouses of the Ministry of Health in Ramallah since the beginning of this year.
5.Targeting pregnant mothers and their unborn babies reflects the magnitude of these war crimes, and hostility to very basis of life, requiring clear and firm positions from the UN institutions concerned with the protection of women and pregnant mothers.
6.We deplore the endangering the lives of workers at the central station of the Department of Transportation of the Ministry of Health, the damage to its administrative offices, and to four health services vehicles whose windscreens were broken as a result of the Israeli targeting of West Gaza. We call upon the concerned authorities to provide the necessary protection for emergency crews and health institutions.
7.The health teams have set a sterling example of preparedness and readiness in making every possible effort to fulfill their humanitarian mission and provide care for their people under the exceptional circumstances of siege, and while their full functional rights are denied.