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Jordan's medical assistance to Gaza

Feb 06,2019 - Last updated at Feb 06,2019

The Jordanian field hospital in Gaza has been in operation for 10 years already and is commemorating this brave humanitarian service with little fanfare.

According to Muath Ghazlan, the director of the hospital, the medical facility has treated more than 1.9 million people in Gaza since its establishment for a variety of health problems, including performing an average of 30 daily surgical operations. This is not to mention the variety of other medical emergency care being offered to the people, and the pharmaceutical medicines offered to the sick when needed.

This rare assistance to the people of Gaza was duly noted and appreciated by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the opening of the hospital expressed profound thanks and appreciation to His Majesty King Abdullah, and to Jordan as a whole, for this generous medical assistance to the people of the Gaza Strip, who are often denied basic medical attention due to the state of siege applied by Israel.

When the number of countries extending basic needs to Gaza and its people was dwindling, Jordan extended its own by operating a field hospital to the people of Gaza against great odds. Financing the Jordanian field hospital has not been easy, especially when Jordan's economy and financial constraints are going through difficult times. Yet, denying medical assistance to the sick in Gaza is not something that Jordan is about to ignore or neglect.

In retrospect, providing basic humanitarian assistance to Gaza should be a collective Arab responsibility. If most Arab countries would only open up their own medical facilities in Gaza, healthcare in the territory would improve a whole lot. Jordan alone cannot cope with the magnitude of the health crisis in the Palestinian territory. This is a time for other Arab states to join the effort.

Jordan has shown the way and hopefully other Arab capitals would do the same. The people of Gaza must not be left alone without food, water or medicine. Politics aside, humanitarian assistance must rise above all other considerations and constraints. This is all the more necessary since the solution for the plight of the Gazans does not seem to get any closer.

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