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Israel preventing X-ray machines from entering Gaza: Health ministry

A Palestinian woman looks through a small window at the X-ray unit at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza Strip on January 5, 2023. (Photo by Reuters)

The Gaza Strip's health ministry says the Israeli regime has been preventing entry of direly-needed X-ray machines into the Tel Aviv-blockaded Palestinian territory.

The ministry announced the information on Thursday, saying requests for eight different types of the devices and spare parts for existing equipment, had been either rejected or delayed over the past 14 months, Reuters reported.

Medhat Abbas, the ministry's director, said the equipment was funded by international relief and medical institutions on behalf of hospitals in Gaza.

"In the whole world, there is no such thing where those who want to buy medicine or medical equipment do not get a permit from the occupier. Why is it that when Palestinians in the Gaza strip want to buy medical equipment, they have to wait a year and in many cases, after waiting, they get an Israeli denial? This is a huge thing," he said.

COGAT, the Israeli regime’s military body responsible for civilian affairs in the occupied territories, however, alleged that the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas that rules the coastal sliver and its fellow resistance groups were "systematically and cynically taking advantage of humanitarian and civilian shipments of equipment and goods...."

The body's remarks echoed the regime's unsubstantiated assertion that the resistance movements use the equipment and goods towards military purposes.

Abbas also said that the Israeli claims about the medical equipment having dual uses were a lie.

Israel occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during heavily-Western-backed war in 1967.

Tel Aviv withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but has been keeping the territory under a crippling siege and regular deadly offensives.

Nalat Zeino, a 51-year-old mother of four, who has been waiting for her kidneys to be examined using an X-ray device, compared the situation to "torture."

"By preventing the equipment into the strip, the patients will get sicker and die," she said.


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