'Two weeks after her death I got a call': Gaza patients face agonising delays for evacuation

"There is no doubt in my mind that people in Gaza are dying because they can't receive the care they need - and that there are preventable deaths happening because of the limits on what can be brought in, in terms of healthcare."Asked about the reports of critical shortages, Cogat said in a statement that 17,000 tons of medicines and medical aid had entered Gaza since the ceasefire, including wheelchairs, cancer medications, insulin pens, anaesthetics, X-ray machines, CT scanners, dialysis machines and medical consumables."Despite claims to the contrary," it said, "Israel has approved every request for medicines submitted by international aid organisations."In response, one humanitarian official involved, speaking to me anonymously, said that Israeli authorities often used anecdotal examples to mask shortages of key medicines and equipment, and that aid supplies continued to be restricted."You don't count medical aid in terms of trucks and pallets; that's not a denominator we use," said the WHO's Reinhilde Van de Weerdt. "We talk about the needs patients have, and the needs that are met.""If medical supply is unrestricted, you don't have these discussions about what is given versus what is needed," she said. "We need certain buffer stock levels of medical supplies, [and] you can't run a hospital hoping the generator doesn't break down."AFPSeveral departments at Nasser Medical Complex lost power after a generator stopped working last weekMazen al-Arayeshi, director of engineering and maintenance at Gaza's ministry of health, said Israel was now allowing enough fuel in to run the generators hospitals rely on for power, but that surgeries were still being cancelled because the power they supplied was too low, and that Israel had refused to allow them to swap in new generators for old.