GAZA CITY (AFP)
Hamas warned on Thursday of a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip which it has run for more than three months due to a dire shortage of basic medical supplies.
"We are warning of a real humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip if medicine doesn't enter Gaza," the health minister in the dismissed Hamas government, Bassem Naim, told reporters in Gaza City.
Gaza health authorities are suffering from a shortage of essential medicines, especially cancer and nephrotic drugs, Naim said.
Hamas bloodily seized power in the impoverished territory of 1.5 million people in mid-June, ousting forces loyal to moderate president Mahmoud Abbas.
Since then, Israel has sealed Gaza's borders allowing only a limited amount of humanitarian supplies in and severely limiting the number of people who can get in and out.
But relief agencies have warned that the current flow of deliveries is not enough to stem a crisis in a territory already reeling from a Western freeze on direct aid, Israeli military incursions and border closures.
The United Nations has repeatedly appealed for the opening of all crossings into the Gaza Strip, warning of the restrictions' severe impact on Gaza's population, more than 80 percent of whom depend on international aid.
The European Union and the United States continue to blacklist Hamas as a terrorist organization, despite the fact that Hamas was democratically elected in January 2006. |
