Gaza Health Ministry says it’s ready for prisoner health checks
A brief statement on Telegram has announced the ministry has completed all necessary preparations for the medical examinations of the Palestinian prisoners to be released.
A video shows people working to repair and renovate Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The medical complex was also used to carry out previous health checks of released prisoners.
About 250 Palestinian prisoners from the occupied West Bank will be freed along with nearly 2,000 others detained in Gaza after Hamas releases the 20 living Israeli captives held in Gaza. The exchange is expected to take place on Monday morning.
Hospitals in Gaza haven’t yet received aid since ceasefire began
Medical facilities throughout the Gaza Strip have not yet received desperately needed supplies in the 72 hours since the ceasefire, says Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza City.
“This warrants some concern over the lives of sick people and injured after the displaced are returning to Gaza City,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. “We are racing against time to provide primary healthcare to receive all these returnees.”
Even before the war began two years ago, Gaza’s healthcare sector suffered from severe supply shortages – now even more so, he said.
“We need long caravans of aid. During the first three months, we would need thousands of trucks because the the healthcare sector is completely destroyed,” Abu Salmiya added.
“We need operation theatres, anesthetic medicines. We need medical professionals and they need supplies for operations, particularly orthopedic neurosurgery and cancer treatments. Our cancer patients haven’t received any treatment over the past two years.”
Thousands of patients also need to be treated outside of Gaza, he said.
UN official: ‘We need the funding, we need the access’ to Gaza
The United Nations humanitarian chief says the Gaza summit at a Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh shows the international community’s commitment to the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
“There are so many things that could go wrong in the coming days and weeks,” Tom Fletcher told The Associated Press in Cairo. “But all of us working on this want to get the hostages home and want to get masses and masses of aid … into Gaza to save as many lives as possible.”
Fletcher said trucks of aid have begun going into Gaza including cooking gas for the first time in months, but not yet at the scale needed.
“Much of Gaza is a wasteland. We are looking to the world to respond with real generosity. We will deliver outside of that plan but we need the funding, and we need the access. And of course, we need this peace agreement, this ceasefire, to hold.”
