SHAFAQNA- Gaza faces humanitarian crisis with shortages of clean water and medicine. According to UN figures, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced and 2,500 have lost their homes in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s nine-day bombardment of Gaza has damaged 17 hospitals and clinics in Gaza, wrecked its only coronavirus test laboratory, sent fetid wastewater into its streets and broke water pipes serving at least 800,000 people, setting off a humanitarian crisis that is touching nearly every civilian in the crowded enclave of about two million people.
Sewage systems inside Gaza have been destroyed. A desalination plant that helped provide fresh water to 250,000 people in the territory is offline. Dozens of schools have been damaged or closed, forcing some 600,000 students to miss classes. Some 72,000 Gazans have been forced to flee their homes. And at least 213 Palestinians have been killed, including dozens of children.
The level of destruction and loss of life in Gaza has underlined the humanitarian challenge in the enclave, already suffering under the weight of an indefinite blockade by Israel and Egypt even before the latest conflict, according to The New York Times.
According to local authorities, 213 people have been killed, including at least 61 children, and more than 1,440 injured since May 10 in the Gaza Strip.
With hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed by patients, the critical surgical supplies include specialist burns treatment as well as “ventilators, oxygen tanks (and) syringes,” Health Minister Hala Zayed said late Monday, Barron’s mentioned.
As Israel began a campaign of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip last week – international aid organizations sprang into action, creating makeshift emergency shelters and arranging shipments of medical supplies for overwhelmed hospitals.
Many countries plan to send humanitarian aid to Gaza. Egypt says it will devote $500 million in reconstruction aid to Gaza. “Egypt will provide 500 million dollars for reconstruction in the Gaza Strip after recent events, with Egyptian companies to carry out the work,” said the spokesperson for the Egyptian presidency on Facebook.
Egyptian Minister of Health Hala Zayed said Monday evening that the shipment of medical aid worth 14 million Egyptian pounds (890,000 dollars) including 65 tons of surgical supplies, including oxygen cylinders, syringes, antibiotics, and ointment for burns, Africanews reported.
A source said 26 trucks of food aid have already been to the Palestinian territory. 50 ambulances were mobilised to transport the wounded, according to the same source.
Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah border crossing a day early on Sunday, allowing ambulances into the Gaza Strip to take those wounded by the air strikes to hospitals, which were on standby since Friday.
An aid delivery from the Egyptian Red Crescent is also expected to reach Gaza in the coming days. A promotional video shared on the Egyptian Cabinet’s official Facebook page on Monday afternoon showed volunteers packing oxygen and other medical supplies. The Egyptian Red Crescent said on Monday that its medical staff were at the Rafah border crossing to receive and treat the wounded, according to The national News.
The Turkiye Diyanet Foundation (TDV) on Wednesday sent 20 hospital beds and two ambulances to Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. In a statement, Ihsan Acik, the second chairman of the board of trustees of the TDV, said that the TDV plans to send four more ambulances to the Gaza Strip, AA mentioned.
Kuwait’s Cabinet said it will send urgent relief assistance to Gaza Strip, state news agency KUNA reported. The violent practices made by Israelis are a flagrant challenge to all international charters and norms, Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said during the cabinet’s weekly meeting, according to Arab News.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry disclosed on Tuesday that Pakistan would send aid to Palestine to help the country deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and the medical emergency situation created by Israeli air strikes that have been ongoing for more than a week, Dawn reported.
According to MTV Lebanon, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday ordered 40 tonnes of aid for Palestinians to be shipped to the West Bank and Gaza following recent violence. The aid includes food, medicine and blankets and will be carried by military aircraft, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Germany on Tuesday pledged 40 million euros ($48.86 million) to ramp up humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, where more than 52,000 Palestinians have been displaced by the latest Israeli air strikes, according to the U.N.
“Today, I will lobby for a better humanitarian supply in Gaza,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said ahead of a meeting with his European Union counterparts to discuss the situation in Israel and Gaza, adding Germany would provide 40 million euros, Reuters reported.
But the humanitarian response has been complicated by the reality on the ground: Continual Israeli strikes have torn up roads and made it difficult for residents of the Palestinian territory to access medical care, and border closures mean relief workers and critical supplies aren’t able to get where they’re needed.
The UN refugee agency UNRWA on Wednesday called on Israel to allow “timely” passage of humanitarian aid and its staff into the besieged Gaza Strip amid Israeli attacks on the Palestinian territory.
In a statement, UNRWA said it did “not receive approval for critical access to Gaza for essential humanitarian supplies meant to provide relief to the distressed population, including particularly vulnerable persons such as pregnant women, children, persons with disabilities and serious medical conditions, and the elderly, despite immense needs following nine days of conflict.”
Ely Sok, the head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the organization has trauma surgeons and other specialists waiting to deploy to hospitals in the Gaza Strip, where their skills are in short supply. But those doctors remain stuck in Jerusalem as they wait to find out if Israel will grant them permits to enter the Gaza Strip, Washington Post reported.