Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – The Indonesian Hospital in the Gaza Strip hopes that medical aid will soon reach northern Gaza, amidst Israel’s blockade and relentless attacks on the densely populated enclave.
“Many patients are being treated at Indonesian hospitals and say that they have not received medicine for several days,” said a volunteer with the humanitarian organization MER-C, Fikri Rofiul Haq when contacted by ANTARA from Jakarta, Saturday.
On October 13, Israel called on around 1.1 million residents of the northern Gaza Strip to flee to the southern Gaza area – near the Rafah border which is the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
On October 21, humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip for the first time through the Rafah border crossing since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.
However, Fikri, an Indonesian citizen who has lived in Gaza since 2020, said that humanitarian aid sent to the Gaza Strip has not been able to reach northern Gaza because Israel continues to carry out attacks and bombings in the Gaza Strip, especially in central Gaza.
Apart from medicine, Fikri said that Palestinian residents in Gaza also really need food, especially after Israel bombed bakeries in the area.
“I saw that Gazans could queue for hours to get bread… At least six bakeries were destroyed by Israeli explosions,” he said.
He said that currently there are more than 2,000 people who have taken refuge in Indonesian Hospital.
At least 1,300 more victims, 60-80 percent of whom are children and women, have been taken to the hospital and more than 4,000 injured victims are currently being treated there.
Fikri said the number of injured victims was so large that they had to be treated in hospital corridors.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza says the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has killed more than 10,800 people, including 9,227 Palestinians. Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip has also made supplies of basic necessities such as food, water and medicine increasingly scarce.
The UN said on October 27 that Israel had openly refused to send humanitarian aid to northern Gaza, where around 300,000-400,000 people were still displaced. (mhn/bbs)
Comment