Lizzi Collinge

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for bringing forward this important debate. It has been 137 days since the ceasefire started in Gaza, and although attention has drifted in the media, the humanitarian crisis rages on. The health sector is at absolute breaking point. Medicines are scarce. Hospitals lie in ruins, and wards have been reduced to rubble. Temporary relief will not be enough. What is required is a sustained and effective humanitarian response and the rebuilding of Gazan healthcare. Not only must we put pressure on the Israeli Government to fully open the border, allow the aid in and allow transfers of care, but the international community has to go further. We have to ensure that Gaza has the infrastructure and sustainability long term to cope with future crises. Years of blockade have left Gaza with a staggering list of challenges: shortages of medical equipment and medication, the destruction of hospitals, the killing of staff and an absence of patient evacuations. Bombs and bullets are not the only things that have been killing Gazans: lack of access to medical care has already killed thousands. At the start of the war in 2023, there were 1,244 kidney patients in Gaza. Now, that number is just 622. Thirty of those patients are documented to have died in Israeli military attacks, but hundreds have died simply for the lack of dialysis. The shortages of medicines are still acute. Basic painkillers have become a luxury, and more than half the people in Gaza do not have access to their regular medication. Lab tests are at risk of complete standstill. Oncology surgery, operating rooms, intensive care—all have been hit very badly. Ongoing restrictions on the free passage of medical equipment by the Israeli Government have meant that the quantity of medicine reaching Gaza’s hospitals is simply not enough. It is not only about the supply. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud laid out, Gaza’s medical workforce has been devastated. More than 1,700 medical workers have been killed, 3,000 have been wounded and more than 500 have been abducted or detained. Twenty-two hospitals have been put out of service, and 211 ambulances have been damaged. Of Gaza’s 176 primary healthcare centres, only a third remain even partially functional. Health services are overwhelmed. Thousands of critically ill patients cannot be evacuated, and 20,000 patients are waiting for treatment abroad, but Rafah is still not fully open. Options are severely constrained. These evacuations are not just a matter of immediate care; they of course relieve the crushing ongoing pressure on the healthcare system. As my hon. Friends have laid out, there are functioning hospitals in the west bank and East Jerusalem, but access to them has been barred, which seems cruel.