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Gaza Hospitals Suffering Due To Border Closure with Egypt

Egypt's closure of the border tunnels is hampering the ability of Gaza's health sector to treat those in need.
A Palestinian man awaits treatment by dialysis inside the kidney section at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza October 27, 2008. The nearly empty corridors of Gaza's main Shifa Hospital testified to the ailing state of health care in the Hamas-controlled territory. A crisis-level shortage of drugs and spare parts for medical equipment and a two-month-old strike by health care workers have combined to add more misery to the lives of the 1.5 million inhabitants of the impoverished Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZ
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Baher al-Turk, a patient at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, has begun to suffer severe anxiety over his health. He fears the consequences of an ongoing shortage of the fuel necessary to run the power generators in the Shifa Medical Complex (the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip), and whose power supply is suffering an acute crisis.

The fuel crisis in the Gaza Strip began after Egyptian security forces in the city of Rafah conducted a large-scale campaign against the tunnels used for smuggling gas into the Strip, destroying most of the pumps that bring fuel into the Strip.

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