Gaza: Critical medical supplies running out one month into deadly siege
Shortage of medication is forcing MSF teams to dress wounds with no pain relief and ration essential medicines. Israeli authorities must end the collective punishment of people in Gaza.
A month-long siege imposed by Israeli authorities in Gaza means some critical medications are now short in supply and are running out, leaving Palestinians at risk of losing vital healthcare, warns Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
Israeli forces continue to bomb the Gaza Strip, depriving people of basic needs, including food, water, and medicines. MSF calls on Israeli authorities to immediately end their inhumane siege of Gaza, and to uphold their responsibilities as an occupying power to facilitate humanitarian aid at scale.
For over a month, no aid or commercial trucks have entered Gaza, marking the longest period since the start of the war without any trucks entering the Strip and on 2 March, Israeli authorities imposed a complete siege of Gaza.
On 9 March they cut the electricity, needed to power water desalination plants. This total blockade of aid and electricity has deprived people of most basic services, amounting to collective punishment.
“The Israeli authorities have condemned the people of Gaza to unbearable suffering with their deadly siege,” says Myriam Laaroussi, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza.
“This deliberate infliction of harm on people is like a slow death; it must end immediately.”
Rationing pain killers
The siege has forced MSF teams to start rationing medications such as pain killers, providing less effective treatment or turning patients away.
Teams are also running out of surgical supplies such as anaesthetics, paediatric antibiotics and medicines for chronic conditions like epilepsy, hypertension and diabetes. As a result of rationing, our teams in some primary healthcare clinics conduct wound dressings for injured people without providing them with any pain relief.
In addition, MSF teams are no longer able to donate blood bags to Nasser Hospital due to a lack of stock, while the influxes of patients who have been wounded by relentless Israeli forces attacks continue.
The lack of soap and clean water for people means in primary health care clinics across the Strip, our teams are seeing an increase of people with skin conditions. In February, MSF teams treated 565 cases of skin conditions at the Al Hekker clinic in Deir Al Balah and 1,198 cases at the Al Attar clinic in Khan Younis.
Just in two weeks in March, the number of cases at Al Hekker had already reached 437—nearly 80 percent of February's total—while at Al Attar, 711 cases had been treated, almost 60 percent of the number seen in February.
The blockade has left MSF teams unable to provide medication to treat skin conditions, just small amounts of lotion to alleviate the pain. Skin conditions like scabies require treatment for the entire family to prevent spread and reinfection, but without medications and clean water this is impossible.
Chronic conditions made worse
For people with non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, the consequences of the lack of treatment may lead to severe complications, such as permanent disabilities and in some cases even death.
Since the blockade, we have only been able to give patients medication to cover their needs for seven to 10 days.
“I don’t have any blood pressure medication left. My son searched for two days and couldn’t find any,” explains Sobheya Al-Beshiti, a patient of the MSF clinic in Al Attar, Khan Younis. “What can I do? Stay without treatment? If I don’t take my blood thinner, my nose starts bleeding, and I start coughing blood.”
During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Eid, patients in MSF clinics are reporting weight loss and lack of access to proper food.
“Right now, my blood levels are low, and my weight is also low. There aren’t enough food supplies to help me gain weight or increase my blood levels,” explains a pregnant mother in an MSF clinic in Mawasi, Khan Younis.
“The rising prices are a huge problem in the city: people simply cannot afford to buy necessities because of how expensive everything is.”
MSF and the Israel – Gaza war
An unprecedented humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Gaza. MSF teams have worked to treat the wounded and supply overwhelmed hospitals as indiscriminate airstrikes and a state of siege threaten millions of men, women and children.