Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Occupied Jerusalem – SANA- Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the afflicted Gaza Strip are threatened with death, as the Israeli occupation continues to close the Rafah crossing to passengers, most of whom are sick and wounded, following its forces’ invasion of the crossing yesterday.
That was in parallel with the occupation forcing medical staff, patients and displaced people at al-Najjar Hospital, east of the city, to evacuate, thus putting it put of service.
Cancer-stricken Muhammad Abu Jarad, told SANA “I was supposed to travel yesterday through the Rafah crossing after waiting for several months to receive treatment abroad, but the occupation’s closure of the crossing came as a death sentence for me and for all patients in need of treatment.
Mustafa Qeshta, who is seriously injured since last February following the Israeli occupation’s bombings, said that treatment was not available to him in the Gaza Strip’s hospitals so he has been waiting to travel for treatment abroad, and as the travel date approaching, the occupation closed the crossing, which is the only point for individuals’ travel as well as for the entry of humanitarian aid.
The tragedy of thousands of sick and wounded is not limited to the occupation’s closure of the Rafah crossing. But rather, it is exacerbated daily by the collapse of the health system in hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip, especially after the evacuation of al-Najjar Hospital, east of Rafah, which is the largest hospital in the city, and where people with chronic diseases are treated, especially those with kidney failure and cancer.
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Huda Oudeh, a dialysis patient, stated that she was displaced from the north of Gaza to the central region of Nuseirat, then to the al-Jeneina neighborhood in Rafah, which is close to al-Najjar Hospital, so that she would not be deprived of dialysis twice a week, noting that after the occupation evacuated the hospital, kidney patients became at risk of death.
Oudeh said that al-Najjar Hospital is the only one in the Gaza Strip that provides dialysis, and this service has become unavailable in any hospital as a result of the aggression, criticizing the international community’s neglect of the suffering of patients in Gaza, in light of the genocidal war and the comprehensive collapse of the entire health system.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health stressed that closing the Rafah crossing is genocide against thousands of sick and wounded people who need treatment outside the hospitals in the Strip, where treatment is not available, as a result of the nonstop Israeli aggression, the power outage, and the running out of medicines and medical supplies.
