Health in Gaza: Israel Allows Entry of Recreational Goods and Prevents Medicines

The Director General of the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Munir Al-Bursh, stated on Wednesday that Israel allows the entry of recreational goods into the sector while preventing essential medicines and medical supplies from reaching hospitals that are still suffering from the repercussions of the genocide.

In previous statements, the government media office in Gaza reported that Israel deprives Palestinian civilians in the sector of 350 types of essential food items needed by children, patients, the injured, and vulnerable groups, while allowing the entry of goods with low nutritional value.

Al-Bursh explained in a statement to Anadolu Agency that Israel floods the Gaza Strip with secondary goods, recreational materials, and modern phones, while closing the gates to medicines, intravenous solutions, antibiotics, dialysis machines, and surgical supplies.

He added that this reality represents an attempt to beautify the siege with a deceptive commercial facade, while hospitals remain without adequate equipment, operating rooms lack devices, medicines are distributed in limited quantities, and fuel and communications are nearly nonexistent.

He considered that the health system in Gaza operates under conditions unlike any health system in the world, but rather as a daily survival arena with almost no resources.

Regarding the health deterioration figures after the genocide and the ceasefire, Al-Bursh stated that the shortage of essential medicines is 54 percent, while 40 percent of emergency medicines are at zero availability, and the zero deficit in medical supplies is 71 percent, the highest in Gaza's history.

He added that 82 percent of children under one year old suffer from anemia, and 18,100 patients are waiting to travel for treatment, emphasizing that their lives depend on a political decision, not a medical one.

He continued that 1,000 patients died while waiting for treatment abroad despite having official papers, while he pointed out that about 6,000 people had their limbs amputated without rehabilitation programs.

This comes as the health sector in Gaza suffers from a near-total collapse in its diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities, as the Israeli army deliberately targeted Gaza's hospitals and health system during the genocide, leading to most hospitals in the sector being out of service and endangering the lives of patients and the injured, according to Palestinian and international data.

The United Nations estimates the cost of rebuilding Gaza at about $70 billion, due to the repercussions of two years of Israeli genocide, which resulted in the martyrdom of more than 69,000 Palestinians and the injury of about 171,000.