By Ali Ghorban Bagheri
The seven-week aggression by the Israeli regime on the Gaza Strip has spawned the worst humanitarian crisis in the blockaded territory, says a Palestinian journalist and author.
In an interview with the Press TV website, Yusuf Faris, a Gaza-based journalist, spoke about the challenges facing the 2.3 million population of the territory after nearly two months of relentless and indiscriminate Israeli bombings.
He said the humanitarian crisis is all-encompassing, covering all spheres of life, with people struggling to have food, water and shelter as the Zionist entity has destroyed everything.
The four-day truce between the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement came into effect early on Saturday, bringing an uneasy calm to the besieged war-torn territory.
The truce, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, came after more than 14,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, most of them children and women.
The Palestinian prisoners who have been freed under the deal have nowhere to go. Their homes have been razed to the ground by the Israeli warplanes in the past several weeks and food is also scarce.
Most of the hospitals in Gaza have also become non-operational due to damages caused by the Israeli aerial blitz, putting the lives of tens of thousands of injured and sick at risk.
Faris said patients with chronic diseases cannot access treatments and medication as most hospitals have been rendered defunct, calling it a “disaster.”
On the Israeli army raid on the Indonesian Hospital, Faris said the hospital housed more than 10,000 displaced people and about 650 injured who were undergoing treatment.
“Israeli tanks entered the hospital and bombed the intensive care room with a number of live shells, resulting in the martyrdom of a number of medical staff members,” he told the Press TV website.
He said the health sector in the northern Gaza Strip has “completely collapsed”.
The Palestinian journalist noted that the ceasefire deal will facilitate limited aid into the territory but the humanitarian crisis the weeks of Israeli bombardment has spawned will stay.
“The goal of the Israeli regime, by targeting the people and hospitals, was to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force people to migrate,” Faris remarked.
“But the plan failed in the face of the steadfastness displayed by the people of Palestine.”
The Israeli regime on Sunday released a second batch of 39 Palestinian prisoners under the swap deal amid a temporary ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip.
It came after Hamas freed 13 Israeli captives in addition to four Thai citizens.
Under the truce deal, at least 50 Israeli captives are expected to be freed. In exchange, 150 Palestinian prisoners will also be released, all women and children.
