Gaza’s already battered healthcare system is in a state of collapse as blood banks run dry and Israeli forces continue targeting clinics and facilities housing patients and displaced families while maintaining an aid blockade.

Healthcare officials in the besieged enclave report that there is a severe shortage of blood as many would-be donors are too malnourished due to a severe Israeli-induced hunger crisis that has so far claimed the lives of 193 Palestinians, including five in the past 24 hours.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said blood donations are desperately needed across the remaining operational medical facilities in Gaza – al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital, and Nasser Hospital.

“We’ve seen at the blood banks many people who were begging doctors to allow them to give blood donations to save their loved ones, but they had to be turned away because they were not fit to donate blood due to the enforced dehydration and starvation,” Mahmoud said.

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