❗️Statement by the Gaza Ministry of Health:

"At a time when the healthcare system is entering its third consecutive year of systematic medical genocide, the Israeli occupation has once again come forward through its spokespeople with a series of false and misleading claims alleging the presence of armed men or weapons storage inside hospitals and healthcare facilities.

The Ministry of Health categorically denies these repeated fabrications and stresses that recycling these flimsy pretexts is nothing more than the manufacture of false justifications aimed at shielding the Israeli war machine and paving the way for the continued dismantling and destruction of what remains of the healthcare system.

These misleading claims, which are being repeated in an overtly transparent manner, come as the aggression enters its third consecutive year of systematic medical genocide and direct attacks on the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip. These attacks have resulted in the destruction of most hospitals and rendered them out of service, while eliminating healthcare capabilities that were built over decades.

In this context, the Ministry of Health emphasizes the following:

▪️Recycling these pretexts at this time is nothing more than an exposed attempt to manufacture media cover and flimsy justifications for the Israeli war machine, paving the way for continued dismantling of what remains of the healthcare system and attacks on the remaining hospitals and medical centers.

▪️What is currently inside the functioning hospitals and medical centers is nothing more than wounded and sick people fighting for their lives, alongside medical and humanitarian personnel working with the bare minimum of resources and capabilities, under exceptionally harsh conditions, to provide even the most basic medical care amid severe shortages of medicines and healthcare supplies.

▪️The Israeli occupation has not been content with imposing a suffocating blockade, preventing the entry of medicines and medical supplies, and obstructing thousands of wounded and sick people from traveling abroad to receive treatment. It insists on continuing to pursue healthcare even in its last remaining places of refuge.

▪️We reiterate our full confirmation that the doors of all hospitals and healthcare facilities have always remained open, without exception, to all international organizations, UN institutions, human rights organizations, and humanitarian bodies, allowing them to enter and directly observe the nature of the work taking place inside them and verify these false claims. The enduring evidence is that these facilities contain nothing but the suffering of our people and the humanitarian mission of our medical personnel.

▪️The Ministry of Health calls on the international community, UN institutions, human rights organizations, and all free people of the world to intervene urgently and immediately to restrain the Israeli machinery of destruction, provide effective and direct international protection for medical personnel and institutions, and halt the policy of systematic misinformation that legitimizes the shedding of the blood of wounded people and medical personnel inside the remaining places of treatment."