By DOMINIC GUTOMAN
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – An international humanitarian non-government organization (NGO) said that the medical facilities that remain operational in Gaza cannot cope with the vast needs brought by increasing casualties in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
“The field hospitals we set up as a last resort are simply a bandage to fix the devastation caused by the war and destruction of the healthcare system. Even their setup has been hampered and delayed by restricting our ability to procure materials and equipment,” said Dr. Amber Alayyan, Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical programme manager.
MSF recorded that only 17 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functional. Six of their staff have also been killed and since October 2023, their team and patients have had to leave 14 health infrastructure due to attacks.
“Each time a medical facility is evacuated, thousands of people lose access to lifesaving medical care. This will have consequences on people’s health, not just in the immediate term, but in the weeks and months to come,” MSF said in a statement.
MSF teams have alo treated over 27,500 patients for violence-related injuries, with more than 80 percent of the wounds linked to shelling. On a daily basis, they treat people with extensive burns, crushed bones, and dismembered bodies caused by massive bombardment of Israel.
“Israel must immediately stop the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza and urgently facilitate the delivery of aid to alleviate suffering inside the Strip, including through the reopening of vital border crossings, in compliance with the measures requested by the International Court of Justice (ICJ),” MSF said.
The ICJ ordered provisional measures to require Israel to open the Rafah crossing for the unhindered delivery of urgent humanitarian aid and ensure unimpended access for fact-finding missions to investigate allegations of genocide. However, in both orders on March 28 and the most recent one on May 24, the judges have lamented the blatant non-implementation of the binding orders from the international court.
The basis for such orders is the commitment of Israel as a state-party to the 1948 Genocide Convention, which pushed for international community’s commitment that the atrocities of genocide never be repeated. South Africa filed a complaint to ICJ on December 29, 2023, stating that Israel “has failed to prevent genocide and has failed to prosecure direct and overt incitement to genocide.”
In the first year of the Al-Aqsa flood, advocates and progressive groups mounted solidarity activities to stand with the Palestinian people in the Philippines. In unison, they call not only for a ceasefire, but for the ending of Israel’s illegal occupation and genocidal war in Gaza.
Read: Filipino children stand in solidarity with Palestinian children
In the report of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), they reported that the entire population of Gaza has been displaced repeatedly, with no safe place to go.
More than 41,600 Palestinians have been reportedly killed, many of them are women and children, and 96,000 injured since October 7 alone, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health (MOH).
“As the medical needs in the Strip increase, our capacity to respond continues to be limited; we just cannot get enough humanitarian and medical supplies into Gaza,” says Dr Alayyan.
In the past 12 months, the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza was not only marked by destructive actions, but has also been defined by “shameful inaction,” MSF reported, due to continuous military support to Israel, despite the mass killings of children and bombardment of humanitarian zones and civilian structures.
In the report of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US accounted for 69 percent of Israel’s weapon imports from 2019 to 2023.
“It supplied a variety of major arms, including aircraft, armoured vehicles, missiles and ships. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rely heavily on arms imports from the USA. For example, all currently active combat aircraft in the Israeli air force were supplied by the USA with special modifications for Israeli use,” the report read.
Meanwhile, Germany accounted for 30 percent of the arm imports, and Italy for 0.9 percent in the same timeframe. In total, the three countries have been the major supplier of Israel on its military campaign in Gaza and Lebanon, which are clear violations of the Geneva Conventions.
“Time and again, political allegiances have been put before human life. While Israel’s allies publicly speak on the importance of a ceasefire and need to facilitate humanitarian aid into Gaza, they continue to provide arms to Israel. The United States in particular, while recently espousing calls for ceasefire, has frequently worked to obfuscate, block, and undermine ceasefire efforts through its role in the United Nations Security Council,” said MSF.
Lebanon is the recent victim of heavy bombardment of Israel. Israeli warplanes carried out more than 30 air raids overnight on September 23, which again, had violated IHL for hitting civilian infrastructure and killing civilians backed by UN’s refugee chief Filippo Grandi. (RVO)
