No medical aid has entered Gaza since May 6: WHO
Despite Israel’s contention at the ICJ that it is facilitating the flow of aid into Gaza, the WHO says it has not been able to get any medical supplies into the enclave since Israeli troops moved towards Rafah.
“The last medical supplies that we got in Gaza was before May 6,” WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said at a UN press briefing today. “We don’t have fuel. We have hospitals under evacuation order. We have a situation where we cannot move physically,” he said.
Palestinian health officials have warned that the few health facilities still operating are desperately depleted and at growing risk of shutting down as Israel presses on with its Rafah offensive.
PRCS says nurse killed in Israeli attack
The Palestine Red Crescent says that nurse Akram Mahmoud Abdullah Makki was killed in Khan Younis on Thursday during an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.
Nurse Akram Mahmoud Abdullah Makki, a member of the reception and emergency department staff at PRCS #AlAmalHospital in Khan Yunis, was killed yesterday evening following an attack by occupation forces on Al-Ja'ouni School in Al-Nuseirat camp, central #Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/WjXiQfa3bQ
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) May 17, 2024
Civil defence teams unable to reach bombarded northern Gaza areas
The civil defence in Gaza says its crews are facing difficulties in accessing the areas targeted by the Israeli army in the north of the besieged and bombarded territory.
In a statement on Telegram, it warned of “ugly scenes of massacres” in Jabalia camp and the Tal al-Zaatar and Al-Qasasib neighbourhoods. “What makes it more painful is that our teams remain unable to meet the appeals of our people whose homes were affected by the Israeli bombardment,” it said.
‘Israel is doing nothing for the people of Gaza’
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has commented on the Israeli legal team’s claims earlier today at the ICJ that Israel is providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip: “Israel is trying to convey that it is aiding Gaza, but nothing out of Israel is going into Gaza. Israel is not contributing to the aid of Gaza, everything is coming from the outside world.
“There’s even, sometimes, criticism in Israeli media about, ‘Why are we helping the people of Gaza?’ “Israel is doing nothing – zero – for the people of Gaza.
“What you have expected them to do is allow shipments, allow the trucks in – and these are not Israeli trucks and on them there are not Israeli medicines or goods, they are part of the Middle East and international community’s attempt at helping the Palestinians as Israel continues to pound Gaza.
“Even in terms of Israel as the occupying power, it actually has an obligation to aid – meaning to protect and to make sure that the people in Gaza, as an occupied people, that they have certainly something to live on. “But Israel refuses to do any of that and if anything, what Israel attempts all along has been to block all aid coming into Gaza from around the world.”
