Hidaya, a 31-year-old Palestinian mother, carries her 18-month-old sick son who is also displaying signs of malnutrition, inside their tent at the Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, on July 24, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP)
Gaza: Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza Dr. Muneer Alboursh warned of the magnitude of the health and humanitarian catastrophe facing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing Israeli aggression, as Hospital bed occupancy has reached an unprecedented 300 percent.
In his remarks to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Alboursh emphasized that the Gaza Strip's hospitals are overcrowded with wounded patients due to the ongoing, round-the-clock Israeli bombardment. He noted that the lives of approximately 200 patients at the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City are threatened by a shortage of medicine and malnutrition.
Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza Dr. Muneer Alboursh
He stressed that the medical and food aid entering the Gaza Strip does not cover even 5 percent of the actual needs, and that it is not of the life-saving type. He noted that the occupation has created a new state of health genocide in Gaza.
He said that more than 500 infants are receiving treatment in hospitals due to hunger and malnutrition, with more than 28,000 cases of severe malnutrition recorded in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year, due to the ongoing siege. He emphasized that malnutrition has also affected medical staff, who are experiencing extreme exhaustion and malnutrition, just like other segments of Gazan society.
The Director-General of the Ministry of Health also noted the successive deaths of approximately 300,000 chronically ill patients due to malnutrition and widespread famine. He pointed out that 13,000 children fell into the category of acute malnutrition last July, while around 40 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women suffer from acute malnutrition.
He highlighted that children and women are the groups most affected by malnutrition, as malnutrition in children leaves serious future consequences, particularly stunting, poor physical growth and immunity, and delayed neurodevelopment that affects cognition and knowledge. It also causes a hidden effect of "genetic reprogramming," which may lead to the inheritance of disease-causing genes to future generations. Meanwhile, malnutrition in the elderly leads to muscle and immune weakness, delayed recovery, and what is known as "micronutrient starvation," which affects osteoporosis and dementia. Malnutrition in women also causes energy and vitamin deficiency, anemia, and hair loss.
Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza Dr. Muneer Alboursh stressed that the rapid collapse in food security in the Strip portends a greater tragedy unless the siege is broken immediately and the crossings are opened to allow the entry of food and medical aid without restrictions. He indicated that hunger does not wait, and malnutrition, if accompanied by disease, creates a deadly cycle from which the weak and the poor do not escape, and they are the majority today due to the Israeli aggression and siege.
Palestinians, mostly children, push to receive a hot meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
He also addressed the reality of laboratories and blood banks in the Gaza Strip, the decline in their work, and the threat to their continuity as a result of the ongoing Israeli war of extermination and the closure of the crossings. Approximately 50 percent of laboratory testing materials are out of stock, and around 60 percent of the remaining basic laboratory materials have a stock that covers only 30 days, while approximately 51 percent of laboratory consumables and supplies have a stock of less than a month.
He announced that many basic tests in the operating and intensive care departments have run out or are close to running out, pointing out that most of the materials needed to check the levels of medications in the blood of patients who have undergone kidney and liver transplants have run out, at a time when the stock of blood bags and transfusion equipment is only sufficient for less than a month, while about 45 percent of laboratory equipment has been damaged or destroyed and needs maintenance and spare parts, in addition to the suspension of immunological disease tests and the central laboratory (newborn screening and PCR tests) since the beginning of the war.
The Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza called for immediate and urgent humanitarian intervention to save the lives of tens of thousands of children, women, and sick people by ensuring the flow of food, supporting the health sector, and enabling humanitarian organizations to implement emergency and comprehensive responses before hunger turns into a horrific mass famine. He stressed that at the forefront of this response is the need for United Nations organizations to urgently assume the responsibility of bringing in all the aid and supplies required to provide an immediate humanitarian response and stop the imminent threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of starving and sick people.
Dr. Muneer Alboursh concluded his remarks to QNA by saying that this can only be achieved through the unconditional opening of safe corridors and allowing the entry of sufficient food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies to halt the humanitarian collapse, ensuring that aid reaches those who deserve it with dignity and safety, free from any interference, obstruction, or chaos created by the occupation.
