Warning of collapse of medical and municipal services in Gaza

The popular committee against the siege warned Saturday of the collapse of health system and municipal services in all governorates of the Gaza Strip because of the Israeli siege and acute fuel shortages.

In a press statement received by the PIC, the committee explained that fuel scarcity disrupted health work especially ambulance service and important hospital sections in addition to the breakdown of equipment used to collect solid waste in Gaza.

The committee added that fuel shortages also affected significantly the water stations in Gaza, thus foreshadowing environmental and health disaster previously warned of by many international institutions.

The committee elaborated that 60 percent of municipal vehicles in Gaza is out of order while the remaining percentage is threatened with collapse over the next few days due to the lack of fuel.

The medical delegation of the Israeli Physicians for Human Rights organization in the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948 warned on Saturday that the health situation in Gaza is deteriorating badly as a result of the escalating Israeli siege on Gaza imposed about nine months ago.

Salah Yahya, the head of the delegation, pointed in a press conference held at the conclusion of his visit to a number of Gaza hospitals that there is a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies inside hospitals because of the siege, underlining that the Israeli siege violates all international humanitarian laws and norms.

Yahya called on all world countries and all human rights organizations to intervene to pressure Israel to lift its siege on Gaza and to stop staying indifferent towards what is happening to the Gaza people.

In another context, Alaa Eddin Al-Batta, the head of the public sector union, called on the public relations officers in the Palestinian police and medical volunteers to head on Sunday morning to the Omar Al-Mukhtar post office to receive last February salaries.

Batta said that there are 700 employees who would be receiving their salaries this morning, pointing that this is the first time in which volunteers of military medical services get paid for their voluntary work.