Israel has effectively dismantled Gaza’s healthcare system, according to Aseel Baidoun, deputy director of advocacy and campaigns at UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians.
“Ninety per cent of the 531 healthcare services points across Gaza have become completely non-functional and we have more than 1,400 health workers killed,” she told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“When I get in touch with doctors inside Gaza, they have no energy because they are starving and overwhelmed. Every hospital has been targeted in Gaza, Israel made sure that healthcare workers are detained or killed.”
Baidoun pointed to the bombing of the home of two Gaza doctors last week, which killed nine of their 10 children.
“These are not isolated incidents. They violate international humanitarian law and they are a part of the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system which was fragile even before October 2023,” Baidoun said.