GAZA, (PIC)
The Ministry of Health announced on Friday that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) carried out 13 massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip, leaving 151 martyrs and 248 injured in the past 24 hours.
In a press statement, the spokesman for the Health Ministry Ashraf Al-Qudra said, “on the 98th day of the brutal Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, bodies of martyrs are still under the debris and others are scattered on the roads as ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.”
Al-Qudra pointed out that the death toll of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip climbed to 23,708 martyrs in addition to 60,005 wounded since October 7. About 70% of the victims were children and women, he highlighted.
He stressed that the IOF has been deliberately destroying neighborhoods, infrastructure, civilian and health facilities, and committing crimes of genocide and mass executions in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Qudra stated that the Israeli attacks on the health system has led to the martyrdom of 337 medical staff including specialist doctors and the arrest of 99 health personnel under harsh and inhumane conditions.
The IOF has targeted 150 health institutions, knocking 30 hospitals and 53 health centers out of service in addition to targeting and destroying 121 ambulances.
The Health Ministry spokesman stressed the urgent need to transfer 6,200 injured people to receive treatment abroad, noting that 10,000 cancer patients are at the risk of death as the Turkish Friendship Hospital, the only one in the Strip specialized in treating cancer patients, has been knocked out of service.
He affirmed that the health situation in southern Gaza Strip hospitals is catastrophic and indescribable as a result of the massive overcrowding in hospitals because of the large number of the wounded among tens of thousands of displaced people, noting that bed occupancy rate in all hospitals exceeds 340% in different departments and intensive care units.
The number of the wounded exceeds 4 times the clinical capacity of hospitals, with the wounded sleeping on hospital’s floors and corridors, he said.
Al-Qudra underlined that the overcrowding of the displaced people in shelter centers in cold weather has aggravated the spread of respiratory, skin, and other infectious diseases, posing a deadly danger to more than 1.9 million displaced people.
The spokesman called on international institutions to take decisive and urgent measures to prevent the disaster. He also urged international institutions to find effective mechanisms that would meet the needs of northern Gaza hospitals, especially medicines and fuel supplies so that they can operate sustainably.
