Haaretz – Adapted
Recently, there has been a severe medication shortage in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It is challenging for Palestinians with severe and chronic illnesses to find and afford medicines. Israel is held responsible for this catastrophe by the Palestinian Authority, which assures that Israel is not providing or funding medical care for the region.

According to a top official source for the Palestinian Authority, there are three main causes for the lack of medicines. The first is that the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Ministry of Health are unable to consistently pay importers. The source also confirmed that pharmacists in hospitals and health centers are on strike and have been doing so for several weeks in protest of not being paid in full. Additionally, the Palestine Refugees' Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, recently shut down the medical clinics it runs in refugee camps due to a budget shortage.

"Taxes that are levied by Israel are used to pay the Authority's whole budget but rarely meet salary costs, including those of the Ministry of Health. There is no chance of paying drugs because Israel deducts hundreds of millions of dollars from these tax funds," the source reported.

The number of therapists at the clinic run by the Association of Physicians for Human Rights has increased by a wide margin over the past three months. Dr. Gay Shliff, the organization's director general, stated: “In addition to Israel's years-long contribution to the economic crisis of the Palestinian Authority, the barriers it is building and its policy of restricting the movement of Palestinians turn the lives of patients into a living hell.” In accordance with the notice from the ministry, there is a shortage of roughly 50% of medicines and other essential treatment ingredients. Within a few days, it won't be possible to run kidney cleaning machines in the Gaza Strip.