More than 3 million life-years have been lost in Gaza as a result of Israel’s genocide, according to recent estimates by economist Sammy Zahran and surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah. “We find that most life-years are lost among civilians, even under the relaxed definition of a supposed combatant involving all men and boys of possible conscription age,” they wrote. “More than 1 million life-years involving children under the age of 15 years have been lost.”
The health crisis in Gaza continues as Israel blocks access to essential food and medical supplies in violation of the ongoing ceasefire agreement. “Despite the announcements following the ceasefire, food and medical supplies are not entering the Gaza Strip as they should,” the international organization Emergency warned on November 6. “We are cutting up the few remaining gauze pads to make smaller ones. Many of our patients need daily dressings, but the entry of aid is insufficient and supplies are running out. With living conditions at the extreme, it will take a long time for their wounds to heal.”
United Nations agencies have echoed such warnings, reporting that since the ceasefire took effect, nine aid organizations had more than 20 requests to deliver shelter supplies alone – amounting to 4,000 pallets – denied by Israeli authorities. The UN also stressed the urgent need to deliver winter supplies, particularly blankets and tents, to prevent further erosion of living and health conditions as temperatures drop.
Read more: Ahmad Al-Abed: The occupation is battling a suicide crisis among its genocidal ranks
Health organizations are attempting to mitigate the situation, particularly among children, by scaling up public health campaigns. One of these plans focuses on vaccinating roughly 44,000 Palestinian children whose immunizations were interrupted or completely abandoned during the genocide. Both children and adults continue to suffer from communicable diseases and skin infections spreading rapidly as a result of life in tents amid rubble, while health evacuations continue to struggle with obstructions by Israeli authorities and a sluggish response from Western governments, contributing to a truly precarious situation.
The destruction inflicted by two years of genocide on Gaza’s health system has shocked even medical workers who survived imprisonment by Israel. Dr. Ahmed Muhanna of Al-Awda Hospital, detained for more than 600 days, recently described his first reactions to the scenes of destruction to Al Jazeera, pointing out that rebuilding a health system capable of meeting people’s needs will be a long process that has to be led by the Palestinians themselves, but requires global solidarity.
Read more: The Israeli attack on Palestinian health workers in Gaza and the failure of the American Medical Association
That solidarity, Palestinian health workers insist, must include accountability for Israel’s war crimes in all international spaces, yet many professional associations remain silent. The World Medical Association (WMA), for example, has yet to condemn Israel’s crimes against Palestinian healthcare – though it promptly accused Iran of attacking Israeli hospitals. “Selective accountability weakens not only the right to health in Gaza, but the credibility of international medical ethics,” a group of health workers wrote in The Lancet. “If the WMA is to fulfill its stated purpose of upholding medical ethics, it must impartially speak up in defense of all healthcare workers.”
International health workers, similarly to their associations, play a crucial role in documenting the genocide and pursuing accountability, Dr. James Smith noted in another overview. However, he adds, this role is often overlooked by emergency medical teams who see their mission solely as caregiving rather than witnessing and reporting. “This reduction of complex moral questions to limited technical applications obscures the imperative to articulate downstream humanitarian crises as a consequence of upstream political failures and cultures of absolute impunity,” Smith concluded.
People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch*. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click* here.
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