|
 McGoldrick said 29,000 Palestinians had been wounded in protests in
the past year, and 7,000 of them had gunshot wounds, mostly in the
lower legs.
"You've got 1,700 people who are in need of serious, complicated
surgeries for them to be able to walk again," McGoldrick said.
"These are people who have been shot during the demonstrations and
who are in need of rehabilitation, and very, very serious and
complex bone reconstruction surgery over a two year period before
they start to rehabilitate themselves."
Without those procedures, all these people are at risk of needing an
amputation, he said.
The U.N. is seeking $20 million to fill the gap in health spending.
A lack of funding to the World Food Program and UNRWA, the U.N.
humanitarian agency that supports Palestinians displaced by the 1948
war of Israel's founding, also meant there could be an interruption
of food supplies for 1 million people.
"If that stops, there is no alternative for people to bring food in
from any other sources, because they don't have purchasing power,"
McGoldrick said.
WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel said a severe lack of funds meant WFP
had cut aid for 193,000 people this year in the West Bank and Gaza,
with 27,000 getting nothing and the rest getting only $8 per month
instead of the usual $10.
[to top of second column] |
Some 2 million Palestinians live in Gaza, the economy of which has
suffered years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades as well as recent
foreign aid cuts and sanctions by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas'
West Bank-based rival.
People's prospects were "precarious", McGoldrick said. Gaza families
averaged $4,000 of debt, while salaries averaged $400 per month, but
54 percent of the population was unemployed.
The health system was impoverished, with unpaid salaries and
dilapidated equipment, and many medical professionals had left if
they could find opportunities elsewhere.
One teaching hospital was now only teaching trauma medicine,
McGoldrick said, but the doctors on the ground did not have the
technical ability to carry out the treatment required for the people
at risk of amputation.
There have already been 120 amputations, 20 of them in children, in
the past year, he said.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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