AhlulBayt News Agency: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip is on the verge of total collapse, as part of what it described as the genocide Israel has been committing against Palestinians in the Strip for over a year and a half.
In a press statement on Sunday, the ICRC said that most of the Palestinians injured in recent incidents in the Gaza Strip were trying to reach aid distribution points managed by the US-Israeli mechanism.
The death toll from the US-Israeli “aid traps” has risen to 125 martyrs, 736 injured, and 9 missing since May 27, following the killing of 13 Palestinians and the injury of 153 others in two separate attacks on Sunday.
The Committee noted that the past few days have seen an escalation in hostilities around the few remaining operational hospitals in the Gaza Strip. It called for the protection of what remains of the Strip’s healthcare facilities to prevent further loss of life.
The committee stressed that “medical staff are facing the challenge of saving lives while under constant threat from stray bullets, putting both healthcare workers and patients at risk, and threatening the continued operation of the field hospital.”
It further emphasized that “the unprecedented influx of casualties—many of whom require immediate intervention—has exhausted and drained medical teams.” The Red Cross concluded that “the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip is on the verge of total collapse.”
Earlier on Sunday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza warned that the fuel supply shortage had entered critical hours that could lead to the shutdown of hospitals in the enclave. It pointed specifically to Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which are at risk of going out of service within 24 hours.
Over the past two weeks, the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah was forced to activate mass casualty response procedures 12 times due to receiving large numbers of people injured by gunfire and shrapnel, according to the same statement.
The Committee noted that the number of cases received by the hospital during this period exceeded 916, including 41 individuals who were declared dead upon arrival.
In this context, Grace Osumo, director of the field hospital, said: “We continue to receive large numbers of patients daily, and we are forced to place them wherever space is available, including stretchers laid on the ground.”
Operating outside the oversight of the United Nations and international aid organizations, Israeli occupation authorities have, since May 27, begun implementing a plan to distribute humanitarian aid through the so-called “Gaza Relief Foundation”—an entity supported by both Israel and the United States but rejected by the United Nations.
Aid is being distributed in what are referred to as “buffer zones” in southern and central Gaza Strip, amid growing signs of the plan’s failure. Distribution operations have been repeatedly suspended due to the overwhelming number of starving people arriving, and Israeli forces have deliberately opened fire on crowds seeking aid at the few available distribution points.
The distribution process follows a mechanism described by human rights and UN organizations as “degrading and humiliating,” where people in need are forced to pass through iron cages wrapped in barbed wire—a scene observers have likened to the “Nazi ghettos” of Europe during World War II.
Israel’s army radio admitted that the plan aims to accelerate the depopulation of northern Gaza Strip by limiting aid distribution to just four points in the south.
With full American backing, Israel has been committing acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, resulting in over 181,000 Palestinians killed or injured—most of them women and children—and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced.
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