Gaza doctors give own blood to patients after scores gunned down seeking aid
Most Palestinians are now too poorly nourished to donate blood, after a months-long Israeli blockade on food and other supplies
Doctors in the Gaza Strip are donating their own blood to save their patients after scores of Palestinians were gunned down while trying to get food aid, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday.
Around 100 MSF staff protested outside the UN headquarters in Geneva against an aid distribution system in Gaza run by an Israeli-backed private company, which has led to chaotic scenes of mass carnage.
“People need the basics of life … they also need it in dignity,” MSF Switzerland’s director general, Stephen Cornish, said at the protest.
“If you’re fearing for your life, running with packages being mowed down, this is just something that is completely beyond everything we’ve ever seen,” he said. “These attacks have killed dozens … They were left to bleed out on the ground.”
Cornish said staff at one of the hospitals where MSF operates had to give blood as most Palestinians are now too poorly nourished to donate.
Israel allowed the private Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to begin food distribution in Gaza last week, after having completely shut the Gaza Strip to all supplies since the beginning of March.