The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced, on Thursday, October 19, 2023, that 3 hospitals were completely out of service in the Gaza Strip, noting that 25 hospitals were partially damaged in the Strip, at a time when the director of the “Martyrs of Al-Aqsa” Hospital in the city of Deir Al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, Iyad Al-Jaabari, the hospital's strategic stock of medicines and medical supplies ran out.
Al-Jabari said, “The health situation in the hospital is very dangerous, and the lives of thousands of patients and wounded are threatened,” and added: “The strategic stock of medicines and medical supplies has run out” due to the tight closure imposed by the occupation authorities on the Gaza Strip, since October 7 of this year.
Al-Jaabari also pointed out that the hospital "provides medical service to thousands of Palestinians in the middle of the Gaza Strip," and appealed to international and human rights bodies "to intervene to force Israel to allow the entry of medical supplies and medicines into Gaza."
Earlier, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the health sector situation in Gaza is “out of control,” and Ghebreyesus added: “Losses (of lives) are recorded for every second delay in delivering medical aid to Gaza.”
He also pointed out that the medical supplies sent by the World Health Organization to Gaza have been waiting at the border (on the Egyptian side) for days, and Ghebreyesus pointed out the urgent need to begin delivering medical supplies to Gaza, calling for an end to the violence between the two sides.