A group of medical professionals and their supporters today held a demonstration next to the Egyptian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur demanding Egypt open the Rafah border crossing to allow unimpeded humanitarian aid to hospitals inside Gaza.
The group of about 30 people, some wearing white lab coats, held placards urging an end to genocide, a ceasefire in Gaza, and unimpeded humanitarian aid to civilians there.
This comes as the World Health Organisation condemned the Israeli Defence Forces raid on Gaza's largest hospital, Al Shifa Hospital, which the IDF said is used by Hamas.
The "White Coat Rally" in front of the embassy was organised by the Malaysian Women's Coalition for Al Quds and Palestine.
“At the (Rafah) border (crossing), there are so many humanitarian aid trucks waiting to go (into Gaza), so many doctors waiting to go and so many field hospitals ready to go in or receive many patients from Gaza,” said Dr Fauziah Mohd Hassan, a consultant ob-gyn, who is also the group's advisor.
Among others, the group urged Egypt to provide critical care for the wounded in Gaza, prevent further displacement of Palestinians, and advocate for violators of international laws to be adjudicated in the International Court of Justice.
They also want Egypt to not label Palestine “freedom fighters” as “terrorists” and to take the lead in an Arab-Islamic Alliance to advocate for Palestine.
The coalition’s chairperson Zuraidah Kornain said it tried to send a memorandum to the embassy earlier this week but was “rudely rebuffed”.
She said the group sent several memoranda to the US embassy, the British High Commission, and the United Nations agencies on the same matter, but never were their memorandum rejected like at the Egyptian embassy.
She said this gave a small glimpse of what Palestinians have had to endure in the past decades, and especially in the past month since violence broke out.
Limited aid through Rafah border
Healthcare workers around the world have held demonstrations in solidarity with their colleagues in hospitals in besieged Gaza.
The Rafah border crossing is the only exit open in blockaded Gaza but the movement of people and goods through the crossing is severely limited.
Several hundred foreign nationals and dual citizens have been allowed to leave Gaza through Rafah, while some wounded and critically ill were allowed to cross to seek treatment in Egypt.
Ambulances of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society en route to Rafah to send the wounded to Egypt for treatment have also been attacked by the IDF, who alleged that Hamas fighters were hiding in the ambulances.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid have also crossed from Egypt but in such small numbers that the United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres described it as “a drop in an ocean of need”.
Further, Israel has barred the movement of fuel into Gaza to stop what it claims to be hoarding by Hamas, but this has also barred hospitals from generating electricity to operate.
Three premature babies dead
Warning of more deaths, the WHO said the violence has caused two major hospitals in Gaza to completely shut down.
The WHO is also “urgently exploring” ways to evacuate patients and medical staff from Al Shifa Hospital, Reuters reported.
“To make sure this can be enabled, of course, there is a need for safe passage and also for fuel for the ambulances,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said.
As of midnight last night, the WHO said 34 of 39 premature babies in the hospital are still alive while 82 bodies have been buried in a mass grave on the hospital grounds.
A further 80 bodies remain unburied while there is no oxygen supply, electricity, or water at the hospital, which has 633 patients, 500 staff, and is sheltering 4,000 displaced people.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also urged measures be taken to “spare patients, healthcare workers, and civilians from violence”.
“Even wars have limits,” it said in a statement.
Evacuation of patients in the ongoing violence and fuel shortage have been rife with difficulties.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it took seven hours to move 25 critical patients from its Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City to Khan Younis about 11km away in the southern part of the strip. The journey had to be done partly on foot.
Al Quds went out of service several days ago after it ran out of fuel, while the PRCS-ran Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis is operating with one small generator, leaving medics to treat patients in darkness or using handheld torchlights.
More than 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children have been killed in ongoing Israeli bombardment of the dense coastal strip since Oct 7, Gaza health officials say.
Some 1,400 Israelis were killed on Oct 7 during a Hamas attack on a music festival and a settlement in Israel, while more than 200 hostages were taken.
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