The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR): The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) calls for immediate and urgent international intervention to reopen crossings and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including medicines, medical supplies, food and fuel, to save the lives of 2 million Palestinians who are enduring deadly conditions deliberately imposed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) since 07 October 2023.
For 45 consecutive days, IOF has been tightening these conditions through closure of all crossings and blocking aid entry into Gaza. These measures have been openly declared by the war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and by Israel Katz, Minister of Defense, in his statement emphasizing Israel’s policy is clear: to prevent humanitarian aid entry into the Gaza Strip and use it as a bargaining chip.1
PCHR believes that such statement is a clear confession of committing a war crime and openly violating the international humanitarian law, in blatant disregard for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings which urge the immediate and widescale flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip to avoid infliction of any irreparable harm to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.
PCHR calls on the ICJ to monitor Israel’s compliance with its precautionary measures and obligate Israel to adhere to them. PCHR also condemns the decision by the President of the ICJ to extend the time-limit for the filing of the Counter-Memorial of Israel in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip to January 2026. 2
This decision comes while Israeli military offensive intensifies on the Gaza Strip and forced displacement of its population from their lands continues amid Israel’s declaration of the illegal annexation of these lands. Israel also continues to target civilian objects, including hospitals, education facilities and shelters, with incendiary bombs that have burnt Palestinian civilians alive in their tents in front of the whole world that remains silent.
According to PCHR’s field follow-up, the closure of crossings ongoing for the second consecutive month has forced bakeries to shut down due to prevention of fuel entry and scarce materials essential for bread production, including flour. Food in Gaza is now limited to rice meals only which are prepared by charity kitchens due to the depletion of goods and food supplies from the markets, including meat, vegetables and fruits. Hunger and thirst are widely spreading in the Gaza Strip severely affecting the most vulnerable groups, especially women and children.
Around one third of pregnant women in Gaza, a total of 55,000 women, are experiencing high-risk pregnancies while 130 babies are daily born with 27% of them born via C-sections. Nearly 20% of newborns are born prematurely, underweight, or with complications needing advanced care that is rapidly diminishing.3
Regarding the healthcare sector, medical facilities are facing a devastating crisis as stocks of medicines and medical supplies are running out, rendering them unable to provide lifesaving medical interventions for patients and the wounded. These medical facilities are now providing services under limited stocks of medications and medical supplies with a 37% deficit in essential medicines and another of 59% for the medical supplies.4
Among the most affected medical services due to the shortage of medicines and medical supplies are cardiac catheterization and open-heart surgery, with a 99% reduction; cancer and blood diseases at 54%; maternal and child health at 51%; vaccinations at 42%; kidney dialysis at 45%; orthopedic surgeries at 87%; and eye surgeries at 73%. 5 In addition, the shortage of fuel needed to operate generators and medical equipment has had immense negative and life-threatening consequences for thousands of patients, forewarning for potential mass deaths.
According to PCHR’s follow-up, hospitals are in dire need of medical supplies, which are alarmingly running out from both healthcare facilities and World Health Organization stocks. This critical shortage is preventing patients from receiving lifesaving healthcare.
WHO, as the largest provider of medicines and medical equipment to Gaza, has also warned that amid no ability to restock the medical warehouses due to the ongoing closure and prevention of aid entry into Gaza, the healthcare crisis will exacerbate and claim further lives.
Many international medical organizations are facing a chronic shortage of medicines for pain relief and chronic diseases, antibiotics, and critical surgical supplies. Moreover, lack of fuel supplies all over the Gaza Strip will eventually lead to cessation of activities as hospitals rely on generators to keep patients in critical condition alive and perform lifesaving surgeries.
According to Samer ‘Attar, a surgeon with the Palestinian-American Emergency Medical Team and working at the Ahli Baptist Hospital before it was bombed by Israeli warplanes at dawn on Sunday, 13 April 2025, and putting it out of service, injuries constantly flood into the Hospital, mostly children and women, and patients and the injured are left on the ground and beds open to the public with no privacy. He added that they are performing surgeries under questionable sterilization due to the severe shortage of surgical gowns, scrubs, and gloves.
In some cases, only gloves are used, and this is posing risks to the patients particularly when dealing with exposed wounds and bones amid high risks of infection and bone deformities and potential amputations in the future. He said that most surgeries, which are supposed to take 30 minutes, are now taking up to 2 hours due to blunt staples or malfunctioning or broken drill bits.
Moreover, minor fractures are improperly fixed due to limited resources and supplies, leading to a permanent disability among patients who survive the initial life-saving interventions. 6
The rate of diseases is increasing, and dangerous illnesses are starting to emerge, including skin diseases such as scabies, hepatitis, respiratory infections, and intestinal diseases due to shortage of water and scarcity of clean drinking water. As of 06 April 2025, only five out of 22 UNRWA-run health centers remained operational in Gaza, along with three rented facilities temporarily functioning as health centers.
The fourth round of polio vaccination campaign was supposed to begin on 13 April, but it has been postponed until further notice due to ongoing Israeli bombardment and forced displacement orders.7 This postponement will lead to imminent return of polio given the catastrophic conditions.
Patients with chronic diseases such as cancer, kidney failure, hypertension, diabetes and heart strokes are facing immense difficulties in accessing treatment amid no hospitals providing healthcare to them or medicines relieving their pain. They were left to face multiple types of death in the Gaza Strip- if they survive from bombardment, hunger, thirst and diseases will not spare them.
In light of the above, PCHR calls on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to fulfill its obligations as an occupying power, ensure the welfare and safety of the population in the occupied territory, reopen all border crossings and allow in humanitarian aid supplies, including medicines, medical supplies, food and fuel.
Such an appeal by PCHR comes in full respect and compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of hunger and thirst as a warfare and prevention of supplies indispensable for the survival of the population. Such measures amount to collective punishment and constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity embodied in the act of extermination according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and acts of the crime of genocide.
- Israeli Minister of Defense on his official account on X platform:
https://x.com/Israel_katz/status/1912420672401285534 ↩︎ - ICJ, Decision by ICJ’s President to extend the time-limit for the filing of the Counter-memorial of Israel, https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20250414-ord-01-00-en.pdf ↩︎
- WHO on its official X account:
https://x.com/WHOoPt/status/1909523819477316004 ↩︎ - Palestinian Ministry of Health-Gaza: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CdPSgjauy/ ↩︎
- Palestinian Ministry of Health-Gaza: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/15a5cpKfxi/ ↩︎
- WHO on its official X account:
https://x.com/WHOoPt/status/1911131665788739832 ↩︎ - UNRWA Situation Report #166 on the Humanitarian Crisis in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem: https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-166-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-jerusalem ↩︎
