Epidemics on the rise and masses injured and ill in Gaza – as planned by Israel’s government?
An injuried girl lies on the floor of Nasser Hospital in Gaza on January 22: victims of Israel’s genocide are now being treated on hospital floors because there is no space anywhere else.
It has been suggested that Israel’s military have been destroying Gaza’s health system, not in search of terrorists lurking under the hospitals, but to increase the likelihood of serious illness and death.
And now…
Gaza’s healthcare system was already struggling to function before the war; after more than 100 days of fighting, it has reached a catastrophic low. With more than 60,000 people injured and tens of thousands ill, their chances of receiving proper care – including life-saving interventions – are rapidly dwindling.
According to the World Health Organization, of the 36 hospitals operating in the Gaza Strip before the war, only 14 are now functioning – seven in the north and seven in the south. Yet even they are only partly operational: only some departments are working, with medical teams stretched far beyond capacity and contending with severe shortages of staff, equipment, medication, fuel for running the facilities, and food and water for patients and teams. With the hospitals working at more than double their capacity, patients are treated on the floor. Another two hospitals, in Khan Yunis, are providing basic services alone, and only to people sheltering there. Since the war began, more than 90 healthcare facilities and 80 ambulances have been damaged.
Aid organizations report that Israel is placing insurmountable obstacles on transferring medical supplies to hospitals, primarily in northern Gaza, and that they are hard pressed to evacuate wounded people due, among other things, to relentless bombings, destruction of roads, fuel shortages and difficulties coordinating the transfer of supplies or injured persons.
The lack of basic medical services is especially worrying given the steady spread of infectious diseases, due to harsh conditions in the overcrowded IDP camps: more than 1 million people huddled together without clean water, enough food or conditions for maintaining basic hygiene.
Tens of thousands of cases have already been reported of respiratory infections, diarrhoea (especially in children under 5) and Hepatitis-A – all going untreated. This situation also naturally exacerbates chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure, cancer and mental disorders.
Israel argues that the responsibility for this dire reality lies solely with Hamas, for using hospitals to establish command centres, dig tunnels underneath, hide weapons, and stage attacks, among other things.
However, these claims do not override the special protection granted by international humanitarian law to hospitals, medical teams, patients and displaced persons.
They certainly do not absolve Israel of its obligations, as the principle of reciprocity does not apply in this body of law: one party violating the rules does not permit the other party to follow suit. The actions of Hamas in no way relieve Israel of its responsibility for the harm caused to civilians.
International humanitarian law provides special protection for the most vulnerable populations that cannot protect themselves, to ensure that every person who needs medical care receives it.
Denying it sentences thousands of people in Gaza to death, pain and indescribable suffering. This approach is both immoral and illegal, and empties a key moral principle of international humanitarian law of meaning.
No doubt the International Court of Justice and the governments of, for example, the United Kingdom and the United States have been thoroughly briefed on this.
But the two governments named still claim to be unable to form an opinion on whether Israel is breaking international law and should be deprived of the weapons it is using to perpetuate the bloodshed in Gaza.
Are our governments deliberately attacking international law in order to support genocide?
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Fascist Israeli regime doing everything they can to murder all Palestinians and yes one successful method they are using is to destroy all health facilities.
The IDF boy murderers must be careful because they too might contract cholera or typhoid and then transmit it to their fellow fascist/zionist supporters!
Meanwhile murderous UK and US political regimes continue to ‘play we don’t see genocide, we don’t hear genocide and we don’t speak of fascist Israeli mass murder of Palestinians!’