Last week the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Israel had barred at least six medical NGOs from entering Gaza.
“WHO is concerned about the impact of these denials on Gaza’s strained healthcare system,” said the organization in a statement, pointing out that just 17 of the area’s 36 hospitals remain functional.
The groups included Glia and FAJR Scientific. At the time of publication three of the banned groups, including the Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA), had been cleared to re-enter the area.
Dr. Tarek Loubani is the Medical Director at Glia, which provides medical supplies to impoverished areas.
“The situation is so incredibly dire and the services we were able to provide were already meager,” Loubani told Mondoweiss. “We weren’t allowed to bring in medications. We weren’t allowed to bring in medical equipment. We weren’t allowed to bring in enough doctors. We weren’t allowed to bring in money. Israel’s restrictions were already killing people but at least we were able to do something. We knew that, but at least we were able to do something. That little something that we were able to do has now evaporated.”
Loubani points out that the group has only been able to bring in $2,800 a month per person. That amount doesn’t go far as Israel’s assault has completely decimated the region’s economy. A single roll of toilet paper is currently $10 in Gaza and a gallon of gasoline is $300.
These frustrations were echoed Dr. Mosab Nasser, the CEO of FAJR Scientific, which provides emergency surgeries in the region.
“Effectively you have to exit as soon as possible,” Nasser told Mondoweiss. “The maximum doctors can stay is about three to four weeks. They have to sleep on the floor at the hospitals. These are top surgeons in the U.S., who live in the comfortably but are trying to help. Even then, Israel blocks them from going in most of the time. We don’t talk politics. We are not activists. We don’t advocate for anything except the protection of innocent people and that is not a crime. We’re there to save lives.”
Nasser notes that there have been severe restrictions on medical staff since Israel invaded Rafah in May and that his organization currently has about $2 million worth of medical supplies stuck in Jordan, the West Bank, and Egypt that they’re unable to bring into Gaza.
In recent days, the Israeli military has besieged hospitals and shelters for displaced Palestinians across northern Gaza while preventing medical aid from entering.
On October 19, Israeli forces bombed a residential block in Beit Lahia, killing more than 80 people and wounding more than 100. On the same day, Israel bombed the Tel al-Zaatar neighborhood in Jabalia, killing 33 people. and wounding more than 85.
“The Israeli Authorities continue to deny humanitarian missions to reach the north with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege,” tweeted UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini. “Hospitals have been hit and are left without power while injured people are left without care…remaining shelters are so overcrowded, some displaced people are now forced to live in the toilets…people attempting to flee are getting killed, their bodies left on the street. Missions to rescue people from under the rubble are also being denied.”
The move comes just one month after a ProPublica article revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected multiple governmental reports showing that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
Despite being made aware of these findings Blinken told Congress that, “[The Biden administration] does not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting” humanitarian aid.
Nasser doesn’t mince words when asked what the new restrictions will mean for the people of Gaza.
“It means many of those injured will no longer survive. Many come to the hospital dead, but people also come to the hospital with shredded arms and legs,” says Nasser. “Many of them require an immediate amputation. Others can be saved by doing a surgery for them. There’s a crippled health care infrastructure in Gaza because many of the local doctors have either been killed or abducted by the Israeli army, so now there aren’t doctors to treat people.”
Nasser says many will develop infections if surgeries can’t be done and that many “will die a slow and painful death.”
“If this ban continues for, let’s say one or two months, you should expect an uptick in the number of people that will die because of their injuries,” he says. “WHO estimates that trauma surgeries will be reduced by 30% due to the absence of these organizations. If you translate that into numbers, thousands of people will die, that could have been saved if we were on the ground.”
Loubani’s assessment is also grim.
‘The very few patients who we were able to help and treat and give some medical comfort to, now they’re going to die too, he says. “This decision means that patients die.”
Remember Tarek Loubani? Canadian, was shot in the leg providing medical care to people shot by Israeli Jewish snipers during the “Great March of Return,” the nonviolent protest in Gaza. Fortunately, he was not shot with an expanding bullet, and he recovered, to work again.