An emergency shipment of medical supplies and other aid for Israeli captives and Palestinian civilians has entered the Gaza Strip as part of an agreement mediated by Qatar and France between Israel and Hamas.
French Ambassador to Israel, Frederic Journes, voiced his hope that the medicine agreement brokered by Qatar and France will be a “first humanitarian step” to seeing the remaining Israeli captives released from Gaza.
“It can advance us toward a deal. This is also the first sign since the end of the earlier deal that something is possible in the issue of the hostages,” Journes said.
On Tuesday, Qatar announced Israel and Hamas reached an agreement to allow medicine deliveries to Israeli captives in Gaza and for aid to be transported to residents in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The first delivery entered Gaza via Egypt on Wednesday and is set to be distributed by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
The humanitarian aid trucks allowed into southern Gaza are not enough to meet people’s desperate needs.
Since Wednesday, at least 10 trucks were let in under a Qatar-brokered deal. The packages they brought included supplies for depleted hospitals as well as medicine for captives held in Gaza.
As a trickle of medical supplies is distributed among Gaza’s desperate hospitals, with more than 61,500 people wounded it’s clear its far from what is needed.
Hospital shelves have been bare for weeks with some with patients undergoing amputations without anaesthetic.
With more than 61,000 people wounded from the Israeli attacks on Gaza, healthcare workers and humanitarian staff at the enclave’s overwhelmed and undersupplied hospitals are witnessing people die in front of them every day.
“I’ve seen children full of shrapnel dying on the floor because there are not the supplies in the emergency department, and the healthcare workers … to care for them,” Sean Casey, of the World Health Organization, said after a visit to several Gaza hospitals.
Many of the partially functioning facilities have also turned into de facto refugee centres, with thousands of displaced people crowding into operating rooms, corridors and stairs, making it even more difficult for medical staff to do their jobs.
A report revealed that there has been a 300% increase in Gaza miscarriages since October 7, 2023.
The dramatic increase in pregnant women losing their babies is because of limited medical supplies and access to health centres, putting them at an increased risk of infection.
Ammal Awadallah, the Executive Director of the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association, said, “All pregnant women are now at severe risk of delivering in unsafe conditions, being put in situations where they are giving birth in cars, tents, and shelters.”
Many births and even C-sections are “being performed without basic medical supplies, or anesthesia and without any postnatal care”, Awadallah said, adding there is now so much risk of haemorrhaging and infections without the right tools and medicines.
Gaza Sinks Further Into Despair
Head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying that the enclave has sunk even “further into despair.”
“Everyone I met had a personal story of fear, death, loss, trauma to share,” the UNRWA Commissioner said.
Lazzarini added that the people of Gaza have moved from the sheer shock of losing everything – in some cases every member of their family – to a debilitating struggle to stay alive and protect their loved ones.
He stressed that this has gone on for far too long.
“There are no winners in these wars. There is endless chaos and growing despair,” he averred.
“I call once again for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to bring some respite,” he added.
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