Middle East conflict: British aid agencies help restock Gaza hospitals

Published on Monday 29 December 2008 16:15

A BRITISH aid agency said tonight it had delivered five truckloads of urgent medical supplies to hospitals in Gaza struggling to deal with the casualties from the Israeli air strikes.

Islamic Relief said the trucks with equipment such as syringes, disposable surgical equipment, oral tubes and bandages had been delivered to hospitals including the main Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Hatem Shurrab, an Islamic Relief aid worker in Gaza said: "What we are seeing in Gaza right now is unprecedented.

"There is urgent humanitarian need and as aid workers we are operating under extreme conditions.

"We have to restrict our movements due to the bombing and we have to work with electricity black outs. People in Gaza are traumatised and under extreme stress."

Islamic Relief has launched a 2 million appeal to pay for humanitarian aid to assist the population of Gaza.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the humanitarian medical aid organisation, said their teams were trying to treat people injured by the fighting, helping to relieve the strain on hospitals overburdened by an influx of wounded people.

A statement from MSF UK said its teams had assessed the needs of the main medical centres in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, in particular Kemal Edwan hospital in the north and Shifa Hospital, which was running low on medical supplies.

"In both Kemal Edwan and Shifa hospitals, medical personnel are overloaded by the influx of wounded and lack space to be able to deal with all the patients," it said.

The work by MSF and Islamic Relief comes after more than 300 air strikes since Saturday have wreaked devastation on Gaza, killing 315 including civilians and children.

Most of those killed since Saturday are reported to be members of Hamas security forces, but the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees said at least 51 of the dead were civilians.

The attacks have left more than 1,400 wounded, overwhelming hospitals and exacerbating shortages of fuel, food and medicines.