GAZA, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Health authorities of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip said that kidney patients' lives are in danger due to a lack of medicines and medical supplies.
Alaa Helles, director of the pharmacy department, told a press conference held outside the children's hospital in Gaza city that 1,200 patients with kidney failure in the Gaza Strip are at risk of being denied access to dialysis sessions.
He added that this means that they will be exposed to severe health complications due to the lack of medical consumables, medicines, and supplies.
He accused the Israeli authorities of preventing the shipment of X-rays through mobile imaging devices to the Gaza Strip for about a year and a half, leaving a large number of kidney failure patients without diagnostic examinations.
Israel has imposed a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million people, since the Hamas movement had seized control of the enclave in 2007.
Hamas officials have always complained that the consequences of the imposed Israeli blockade were disastrous, increasing poverty and unemployment rates.
They accused Israel of banning medical equipment and devices shipment to the Gaza Strip. ■
