The Ministry of Health organized a field event in front of the Beit Hanoun checkpoint to demand the treatment rights of patients. The Israeli occupation practice against Palestinian patients all kinds of pressures preventing them from reaching specialized hospitals in the occupied territories and the West Bank, as the Ministry of Health spokesman.
Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra stated that the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza imposed difficult health and humanitarian reality on Gaza Patients.
The following are the highlights of the Ministry of Health press conference:
Since the occupation imposed the siege on the Gaza Strip about 16 years ago, repeated and systematic racist attacks have been practiced against Gaza patients.
these practices have posed a direct threat to the Gazans’ lives and deprived them of their treatment rights due to a shortage of 40% of basic medicines, 32% of medical consumables, and 60% of the laboratory’s chemicals and blood banks.
The Israeli blockade has deprived about 50% of patients in the Gaza Strip of their treatment rights guaranteed by international humanitarian law inside and outside the Gaza Strip.
According to international reports, 1922 patients are unable to reach specialized hospitals in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the occupied Palestinian interior promptly due to the Israeli occupation’s procrastination.
371 patients left the Gaza Strip for treatment without escorts, and this number is the highest since last April, some of them lost their lives alone in inhumane conditions.
An increasing number of patients referred for treatment inside the occupied territories are subjected to harassment and investigation by the Israeli occupation without considering their severe health conditions.
Kidney failure patients live a harsh reality due to the severe shortage of medicines, which may expose them to severe complications that lead to their death.
The Israeli occupation is obstructing the entry of 21 diagnostic x-ray machines into hospitals in the Gaza Strip, in addition to the entry of spare parts needed to repair 87 medical devices in hospitals, including 12 radiology devices.
We call on international, humanitarian, and human rights institutions today, more than ever, to pressurize the Israeli occupation to end the siege on Gaza and to provide medicines, medical consumables, laboratory supplies, medical devices, and urgent treatment needs for Gaza patients before we witness more deaths.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health