OIC Secretary General Launches Urgent Appeal to Rescue Health Sector in Gaza

The Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has launched an urgent appeal for emergency medical assistance to the Gaza Strip in order to address the unprecedented health crisis in the Strip. Ihsanoglu appealed to the OIC Member States, humanitarian organisations and philanthropists in the Muslim world as well as to civil society and international organisations in the world to provide urgent assistance to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, particularly for the treatment of cancer diseases, the provision of dialysis supplies with a view to alleviating the difficult humanitarian situation due to the lack of medicines and the other health requirements. Meanwhile, the OIC Humanitarian Affairs Department stated that the OIC humanitarian aid coordination offices in Cairo and Gaza are prepared to coordinate the provision of the required assistance and facilitate access to beneficiaries in the Gaza Strip. In another respect, health centres and hospitals in the Gaza Strip are unable to meet the health needs particularly due to hospitals'' failure to provide medicines and medical supplies, which may lead to a disaster in the health sector which is already exhausted as a result of the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.