BICOM

The British Government announced a new aid package yesterday to provide urgent medical supplies to hospitals across the Gaza Strip.

The funding, according to the International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, will help to keep Gaza’s hospitals functioning as they face increasing numbers of emergency patients.

Mordaunt said: “The UK is deeply concerned by the crisis in Gaza and the pressure it is putting on hospitals, which are now near breaking point. The UK aid funding announced today will help treat the growing number of emergency patients and provide urgently needed medicines, surgical supplies and rehabilitation.”

The new package, worth £2m, will go to the International Committee for the Red Cross’s (ICRC) 2019 Israel and Occupied Territories (ILOT) Appeal. UK aid will contribute to the delivery of surgical equipment, drugs and disposables, wound dressing kits, rehabilitative prosthetics, and post-surgery physiotherapy through the Artificial Limb and Polio Centre.

According to the Department for International Development: “Hospitals in Gaza are under extreme pressure, after trauma patients requiring treatment increased month-on-month to more than 29,000 over the last year. Rising demands on hospitals have reduced general access to healthcare, with consistent shortages of medicines and supplies leading to increased rates of infection, and a growing risk of amputations and antibiotic resistance”.

The International Development Secretary also said the UK is: “Working to address some of the underlying causes of the humanitarian situation in Gaza through an economic development programme, which includes increasing the sustainable supplies of water and electricity”. The Department for International Development is currently working on a £38,024,697 budget programme, ‘Supporting Economic Empowerment and Development in the Occupied Palestinian Territories’, which began on 2 November 2018 and is planned to run until 31 March 2023.

She added: “The UK supports a return to negotiations to find a lasting political settlement for Palestinians and Israelis.”

The Gaza Strip is approximately 360 square kilometres in size and has a population of nearly 2 million.