Patients Dying as Israel’s Blockade on Gaza Aid Continues – Report

May 5, 2025 News
Gaza's Ministry of Health announced the "total collapse" of the health system in all hospitals in the Strip. (Photo: Gaza's government media office)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

For more than 60 days, no humanitarian aid has entered Gaza as Israel imposes a total seige on the enclave.

Israel’s ongoing siege on the Gaza Strip has resulted in “catastrophic” effects, according to doctors, while humanitarian groups and European officials say Israel is using aid as a “political tool,” the New York Times (NYT) reported on Sunday.

On March 2, Israel imposed a total blockade on the entry of all humanitarian aid, including food, water and medical supplies.

Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, told the paper that he is running out of answers for doctors and patients who call to ask where they can find the required medicine.

“There’s no advice I can give them,” he reportedly said, adding, “In most cases, those patients die.”

Entire Medical System Affected

With bakeries forced to close and flour supplies running out, the report noted that malnutrition “has had knockdown effects on the entire medical system.”

Burn victims and dialysis patients, for example, are heavily affected by the lack of food.

“Dialysis patients need a balanced diet, but everyone is surviving mainly on canned foods,” Dr. Ghazi al-Yazji, the head of nephrology at Al-Shifa Hospital, said.

Palestinian Child Dies from Starvation as Israeli Siege Prevents Essential Supplies

The doctor said he has had to cut his patients’ weekly dialysis sessions to two times a week instead of three, and shortened. This meant that toxins would gradually build up in their bodies, he stressed.

However, said Dr. al-Yazji, he had no choice as patients would otherwise “go without dialysis altogether, which would be fatal.”

Preventable Diseases Surging

The decreasing supply of medication for blood pressure and diabetes patients meant that anyone needing them “is likely to die,” the report noted.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, the report added, “warehouses are now out of 37 percent of ‘essential medicines.’”

Doctors also say that preventable diseases and illnesses are surging and with it, the likelihood of dying from them, the report added.

‘Food Insecurity’ and Malnutrition

The report said the UN-backed monitoring system for malnutrition, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, recently began a new review to determine whether conditions in Gaza amount to famine.

Already, the UN has said that 91 percent of the population analyzed is estimated to be facing “food insecurity,” with most enduring “emergency” or “catastrophic” levels.

‘Weaponizing’ Food – Over 65,000 Gaza Children Hospitalized for Malnutrition

According to NYT, the report has been slammed by Israeli authorities, alleging that it contains “factual and methodological flaws, some of them serious.”

Ahmed Mohsen, 30, a construction worker, told the paper that he spends around two hours a day standing in line for food. On one particular day, he only received plain rice.

“Imagine you haven’t tasted meat, a boiled egg or even an apple in months,” Mohsen reportedly said.

‘We Eat Once a Day’

Another displaced Palestinian said “he lives on the occasional can of food and a stockpile of flour, lentils and kidney beans that his family hopes to stretch for several more weeks by eating a single meal per day.”

“We eat once a day, at noon, and that’s it,” he is quoted as saying, adding, “I feel like I can’t breathe when I see my brothers and sisters are still hungry.”

The astronomical prices of food have added to the catastrophe, with canned vegetables selling for around $8, “10 times as much as before the siege; and a sack of flour that cost around $5 before is now around $300.”

Water Supply

Israel has cut off the electricity supply to the enclave, resulting in generators at Gaza’s main desalination plant able to produce potable water at only 10 percent of its usual capacity, the NYT noted.

But with fuel stores inaccessible, the report added, even that production is at risk.

“The estimation is that 90 percent of the fuel that is in storage in Gaza today is inaccessible due to evacuation orders,” Paula Navarro, the water and sanitation coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, said.

In addition, clean water is inaccessible “because of heavy damage to water pipelines and long waits at water trucks,” the report noted.

Many in Gaza have resorted to using boreholes with unsanitary water, for example, she said, prompting a spike in jaundice, diarrhea and scabies cases.

‘We’ll Lose More Patients’

Dr. al-Yazji, at Al-Shifa Hospital, said it seems more pointless every day to try to advise his patients on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

“Without urgent intervention and resumption of aid, we will lose more patients,” he is quoted as saying. “We are facing a catastrophic situation.”

The report said that humanitarian groups and European officials have warned that the total blockade violates international law and accused Israel of using aid as a “political tool.”

Israel claims that Hamas is responsibile for “hoarding supplies” but aid groups, the report said, “insist that some supplies — particularly produce, some medicines, cooking gas and the type of fuel used by ambulances — have simply run out.”

Supplies Depleted – WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) announced last Monday that its food supplies in Gaza have been depleted due to Israel’s ongoing closure of crossings.

“WFP’s food stocks inside #Gaza are depleted. Lifesaving aid is ready nearby — but all border crossings remain closed, the WFP said on X.
“Millions depend on this assistance to survive. But without access, humanitarian operations are at a standstill. We urgently need aid to enter Gaza,” the organization emphasized.

Rising Death Toll

Since Israel’s reneging on the ceasefire on March 18, it has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip through a bloody and ongoing aerial bombardment.

On October 7, 2023, following a Palestinian Resistance operation in southern Israel, the Israeli military launched a genocidal war against the Palestinians, killing over 52,000, wounding more than 118,000, with over 14,000 still missing.

Even Survival Is Resistance: Life and Loss under Genocide in Northern Gaza

Despite habitual condemnation by many countries around the world of the Israeli genocide, little has been done to hold Israel accountable.

Israel is currently under investigation for the crime of genocide by the International Court of Justice, while accused war criminals — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — are now officially wanted by the International Criminal Court.

The Israeli genocide has been largely defended, supported, and financed by Washington and a few other Western powers.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

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