Here's a stunning report on Gaza from a Jewish professor of epidemiology in Canada.
It
was as if we had travelled to another planet.
The sandy track is
surrounded by the blown-up remnants of Gaza's former industrial
district. Rubble stretching for hundreds of metres lines the route…. The air reeks of burnt oil and stale food from exhaust
fumes (cars rely on used cooking oil for fuel.)
There are not many cars on the road, anyway. Donkey carts are common.
Every so often, the smell of sewage fills the air. Lack of treatment
facilities means that much of it is dumped raw into the Mediterranean.
We went first to a children's hospital on the edge of Gaza City. The
hospital director and doctors described the conditions. Of 100 beds, 40
were occupied by children with bacterial meningitis, an extremely
serious disease.
There's a shortage of basic medicines and supplies, even simple things such as alcohol swabs.
The hospital has three ventilators; only one is working. Israel won't let in spare parts for the others.
The working machine is for a "hopeless case" who can't be taken off.
Meanwhile, patients who could benefit have no working machine.
There are many cases of malnutrition —
You can read more by Harry Shannon in the Hamilton Spectator. He's with Independent Jewish Voices, an anti-occupation group. Had enough? You can go back to your comfortable life. I'm going for a hike in the woods, and out to dinner, an ethnic minority and a free man in the USA.
