Jerusalem, 2nd April – A month-long siege
imposed by Israeli authorities in Gaza, Palestine, means
some critical medications are now short in supply and are
running out, leaving Palestinians at risk of losing vital
healthcare, warns Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without
Borders (MSF). As Israeli forces continue to bomb the Gaza
Strip, depriving people of basic needs, including food,
water, and medicines may lead to a high number of health
complications and deaths. MSF calls on Israeli authorities
to immediately cease the collective punishment of
Palestinians, end their inhumane siege of Gaza, and to
uphold their responsibilities as an occupying power to
facilitate humanitarian aid at scale.
For over a
month, no aid or commercial trucks have entered Gaza,
marking the longest period since the start of the war
without any trucks entering the Strip and on 2 March,
Israeli authorities imposed a complete siege of Gaza. On 9
March they cut the electricity, needed to power water
desalination plants. This total blockade of aid and
electricity has deprived people of most basic services,
amounting to collective punishment.
“The Israeli
authorities’ have condemned the people of Gaza to unbearable
suffering with their deadly siege,” says Myriam Laaroussi,
MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza. “This deliberate
infliction of harm on people is like a slow death; it must
end immediately.”
The siege has forced
MSF teams have already to start rationing medications such
as pain killers, providing less effective treatment or
turning patients away. Teams are also running out of
surgical supplies such as anaesthetics, paediatric
antibiotics and medicines for chronic conditions like
epilepsy, hypertension and diabetes. As a result of
rationing, our teams in some primary health care clinics
conduct wound dressings for injured people without providing
them with any pain relief.
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In addition,
MSF teams are no longer able to donate blood bag donations
to Nasser hospital due to a lack of stock, while the
influxes of patients war-wounded by relentless Israeli
force’s relentless continue.
The lack of soap and
clean water for people means in primary health care clinics
across the Strip, our teams are seeing an increase of people
with skin conditions. In February, MSF teams treated 565
cases of skin conditions at the Al Hekker clinic in Deir Al
Balah and 1,198 cases at the Al Attar clinic in Khan Younis.
Just in two weeks in March, the number of cases at Al Hekker
had already reached 437—nearly 80 percent of February’s
total—while at Al Attar, 711 cases had been treated,
almost 60 percent oof the number seen in February.
The
blockade has left MSF teams are unable to provide medication
to treat skin conditions, just small amounts of lotion to
alleviate the pain. Skin conditions like scabies require
treatment for the entire family to prevent spread and
reinfection, but without medications, and clean water this
is impossible.
For people with non-communicable
diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, the
consequences of the lack of treatment may lead to severe
complications, such as permanent disabilities and in some
cases even death. Since the blockade, we have only been able
to give patients medication to cover their needs for seven
to 10 days.
“I don’t have any blood pressure
medication left. My son searched for two days and couldn’t
find any,” explains Sobheya Al-Beshiti, a patient of the
MSF clinic in Attar, Khan Younis. “What can I do? Stay
without treatment? If I don’t take my blood thinner, my
nose starts bleeding, and I start coughing
blood.”
During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and
Eid, patients in MSF clinics are reporting weight loss and
lack of access to proper food.
“Right now, my blood
levels are low, and my weight is also low. There aren’t
enough food supplies to help me gain weight or increase my
blood levels,” explains pregnant mother in an MSF clinic
in Mawasi, Khan Younis. “The rising prices are a huge
problem in the city: people simply cannot afford to buy
necessities because of how expensive everything
is.”
