Picture: Gaza Ministry of Health/Supplied
As reports emerge over Israel using air strikes on Gaza and the impact of the war on Israelis, there is very little news about what is happening to the citizens of Palestine and how the ordinary day-to-day people are being affected.
According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip, health services have reached a critical stage and medicines, medical consumables, and fuel will run out imminently.
This comes after Israel ordered a “complete blockade” in retaliation to Hamas attack on Israel at the weekend.
In addition to that, hospitals are working at full capacity and there is no place for the wounded from Israeli airstrikes to be treated.
“The complete embargo on electricity, water, and fuel by Israeli occupation forces poses a danger to the lives of the wounded and sick people, which causes a serious health and environmental disaster,” said spokesperson of the Ministry of Health Dr. Ashraf Qudera.
Qudera said the Ministry of Health in Gaza holds the Israeli occupation “fully responsible” for the lives of the wounded and sick people due to the exhaustion of the health system and the weakening of the Ministry's capabilities during the blockade.
The Ministry calls for urgent action to be taken to provide safe passage for medical supplies and to transfer the wounded.
In Gaza, 1,354 Palestinians have been killed since start of escalation on morning of 7 October. A total of 6,049 citizens sustained injuries at the time of publication.
A group of experts in United Nations (UN) have spoken out against Israel's strikes on Gaza, saying it amounts to 'collective punishment'.
While the experts condemned "horrific crimes committed by Hamas" against civilians in Israel, they deplored the "collective punishment" of reprisal strikes against Gaza.
They said Israel had resorted to "indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza".
"They have lived under unlawful blockade for 16 years, and already gone through five major brutal wars, which remain unaccounted for," the group, which includes several U.N. special rapporteurs, said in a statement.
"This amounts to collective punishment. There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime."
Israel said on Thursday there would be no humanitarian break to its siege of the Gaza Strip until all its hostages were freed. The Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300 people since Saturday.
IOL