A human rights report revealed that the Israeli occupation’s aggression against the Gaza Strip has put patients with chronic diseases at risk of death, due to weak health services on the one hand, and the depletion of medicines on the other hand, in addition to food shortages and their inability to bear the cost of purchasing whatever food may be available, especially in Poverty remained and the repeated forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of them.
The report issued by Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Palestine explained that patients with chronic diseases need the constant availability of medicines and appropriate treatments, and their delay in taking medicine leads to a deterioration in their health conditions and exposes their lives to the risk of death.
The report pointed out that many patients stopped taking their medications regularly, while some of them stopped taking the medication because it was not available in pharmacies or centers affiliated with the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The number of people suffering from chronic diseases in the Gaza Strip is about 350 thousand patients, all of whom were deprived of receiving the necessary health care as a result of the genocidal war, as the occupation forces destroyed 10 medicine stores belonging to the Ministry of Health.
He pointed out that the occupation forces prevented the entry of any medicines or medical consumables from the beginning of the war in October 2023 until February 2024, and then allowed some Palestinian medical companies to enter certain types of medicines, including medications for chronic diseases, until May. 2024.
The quantities that entered do not exceed 10% of the actual need for the sector, and no medications for chronic diseases have entered since that time. The deficit in primary care medications for chronic diseases reached 80%.
Al Mezan Center confirmed that medical services for chronic diseases in the Gaza Strip were affected during the war of extermination, as a result of many hospitals and specialized departments being out of service, and the loss of many types of medicines and medical consumables due to the burning and destruction of central warehouses, obstructing the arrival of medicines and food, and the killing, arrest, and travel of a number of specialized doctors. .
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights called on the international community and its effective institutions to exert pressure and protect the lives of patients, especially those suffering from chronic diseases, and to protect hospitals, health facilities and medical personnel, calling for urgent permission for the passage of consignments of medicines, consumables and all medical supplies, and facilitating their arrival and movement between the south and north of the Gaza Strip and vice versa. Especially medications for chronic diseases, in quantities that cover the actual need of the sector.