Ten days after Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was forced to stop supporting the Martyrs and Beni Shueila clinics because Israeli forces ordered the area to be evacuated, health care in the region, like the rest of the country, is collapsing Gaza Strip, together. Almost half of the medical consultations conducted by MSF in these two clinics involved children under the age of five with wounds, sometimes even infections.
In Rafah, the southernmost area of the Gaza Strip and where residents of Khan Yunis and the Middle Region have been displaced, health care is extremely limited. On December 9, a MSF team began supporting the Al-Shaboura clinic, treating over 130 patients on the first day.
“One in two patients has a respiratory infection due to prolonged exposure to cold and rain,” says Nicholas Papachrysostomou, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza. “People live in extremely poor hygienic conditions. In some accommodations, 600 people share a single bathroom. We are already seeing many cases of diarrhea. Children are often the most affected.” The United Nations Security Council, MSF stresses, “must call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire to lift the siege and ensure unlimited aid to the entire Gaza Strip.”