Israel

The functionality of Gaza’s 14 public hospitals is increasingly jeopardized by electricity shortages. Several of the most severely impacted hospitals have already put rationalization measures in place and suspended sterilization, diagnostic imaging, cleaning, laundry and catering services during cut-off hours. Elective surgeries have been further reduced and drastic service reductions, including closures of wards and hospitals, are imminent.Hundreds of patients, including newborn and children, whose life depends on the availability of dialysis services, incubators and ventilators in intensive care units, and other electrical life-sustaining devices, and those requiring surgical interventions will be directly affected. 

Electricity cuts and continued shortages of medicines and medical supplies in the Gaza Strip are severely restricting the access of 2 million people to critical medical care, the WHO has warned. At least 30 hospitals, 70 primary health care centres and a blood blank are at risk of full or partial closure due to continued power outages and not enough fuel or spare parts for back-up generators.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel reports on the increasing number of attacks against personnel and transport teams by Israeli Army and Border Police in Israel and Palestine and the Israeli authorities dismissal or delay in investigating these occurrences.

In a world of conflict, confrontation, deadlocks and dead ends, few crises are as protracted as the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. But in hospitals, schools and businesses, Israeli Arabs, Jews and Palestinians are working side by side to forge a better future.

Physicians for Human Rights–Israel commissioned a fact-finding mission to investigate the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip that began in July 2014. Eight independent international medical experts gathered evidence on the types, causes, and patterns of injuries and attacks; attacks on medical teams and facilities; evacuation; impact of the conflict on the health care system; and longer-term issues. A new report presents their findings, including that medical teams were killed or injured in the course of evacuating the injured and that at least one apparent deliberate attack on a hospital resulted in several people killed and injured.