Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said on Sunday that there are 3,000 cancer patients at the Rantisi and Turkish hospitals who face imminent death because of the catastrophic situation in Gaza hospitals.
Pregnant women were also in danger, she said. An estimated 50,000 pregnant women are living in the besieged coastal enclave, with an average 160 births expected to occur every day over the next month, according to the UN’s Population Fund.
“All pregnant women, especially those with high-risk pregnancies, are now in imminent danger as they cannot find anyone to provide them with medical care and services in Gaza. Every woman about to give birth will find no medical assistance,” she said.
Mai al-Kaila further said that Israeli forces were “not evacuating people”, but rather “forcing wounded patients onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death.”
According to the minister, this amounts to “expulsion under the threat of arms.”
She also noted that there was a “catastrophe unfolding” in all of Gaza’s hospitals, with patients dying without being able to be treated.
Some of the worst-affected are those with kidney failure, who have not been able to undergo dialysis.
Palestinians sheltering inside Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital are pleading for help from the international community as tanks surround the hospital.
The hospital’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said to Al Jazeera that the premature babies are in a “precarious situation” and any person moving within the hospital compound is being attacked by Israeli snipers.
