The Palestinian Health Ministry on Friday called on Gaza Strip residents to donate blood, reporting that apart from 24 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours, 82 Palestinians were wounded and hospitals are short on blood to treat the wounded.
The Health Ministry Spokesman Khalid Radhi called for Palestinian citizens to donate blood to treat the injured, and made a special appeal for those of blood type O-. According to Radhi, 12 of the injured are now in the Intensive Care Unit, and the condition of 14 others is described as "serious". He also said that 27 of the injured were children.
The wounded and killed continue to be brought into hospitals as hundreds of Israeli tanks roll into the Gaza Strip, one of the most crowded places on earth, opening fire into neighborhoods and homes.
Meanwhile, routine medical care has been put on hold, which means, according to the Palestinian National Authority’s Statistics Bureau:
1. 112,000 patients with chronic diseases who need routine
medications are not able to get these medications at all and if they
do receive the correct medications, it might be expired due to lack
of regular electricity where it is stored in the refrigerators of the
medical facilities. Cancer patients, diabetic patients, and people
with heart disease are some of the many cases.
2. 22 hospitals are currently depending on alternative electric power
generators — the diesel fuel necessary to run these generators must come
from Israel, and Israel has stopped allowing fuel to enter Gaza.
3. 200 daily surgical operations will be postponed.
4. 250 renal dialysis patients’ lives are threatened because the
supply of dialysis solution is running low.
5. 30,000 children suffer from malnutrition. This number will
increase as diarrhea spreads. There is a limited supply of good clean
water and high rates of food contamination; diarrhea is expected to
rise by 15% as an outcome of lack of clean water and good hygiene.
6. Premature babies on life support machines are essentially being dealt
death sentences and the number of deaths for preterm deliveries will
increase as well.
7. Children are lacking proper sleep and proper recreation. They are
feeling insecure all the time and have to live with the non-stop
sonic booming and artillery shelling. A number of those children will
continue to suffer from different psychological problems or drawbacks.
An Israeli military official stated earlier this week that the Israeli invasion is a ‘confidence-building’ measure for Israeli soldiers who felt stymied at a military attack by Palestinian resistance fighters two weeks ago, in which the fighters managed to enter deep into an Israeli military base on the Egypt border, killing two soldiers and taking one soldier prisoner.
