GAZA: The University College of Applied Sciences in Gaza (UCAS) launched on Saturday, a program funded by Kuwait’s International Islamic Charity Organization (IICO) that urgently sends senior medical students all over Palestine to hospitals in southern Gaza. UCAS’s Vice Chancellor Mohammad Mushtaha said in remarks to KUNA that the program aims to send 350 students who are expected to graduate this year to the war-ravaged Strip and is set to be active for five months.

The program will provide a unique opportunity for the talented students to get real life experience on the field and will greatly improve their capabilities, in the midst of an urgent need for medical care in Gaza, Mushtaha added. He expressed his gratitude to HH the Kuwait’s Amir, government, and people for their undying moral and financial support across all fields.

Women strive to ease distresses

In spite of Zionist occupation’s 10-month aggression on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian women have been resolutely determined to launch initiatives to help in alleviating bare impacts on people. Afnan Bakroon and her two daughters offered various services at a refugee camp in Al-Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, in a bid to help displaced students.

Speaking to the Palestinian WAFA news agency, Afnan, who acquired a master’s degree from the Islamic University in Gaza, said she teaches English and math to displaced students at the camp, while her daughters teach them Hebrew language and computer. Afnan added that her daughter had also opened a psychological health clinic at the camp a month ago in order to give free psychological support to the families of those martyred in Zionist aggressions on the enclave.

The occupation’s continued atrocities have so far forced as many as 1.93 million people, making up roughly 85 percent of the territory’s population, to leave their homes in Gaza. The UN refugee agency (UNRWA) estimated that more than 625,000 children have dropped out of schools since the occupation launched the aggression, regretting that scores of schools and colleges have been destroyed in occupation attacks.

Lobna Al-Azayza, a pediatrician and breastfeeding specialist, said she had decided to set up a makeshift clinic at the refugee camp in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, offering medical care to newborns and injured people. Regretting that her clinic was destroyed in the aggression, Al-Azayza said that several nurses are working with her at the newly established clinic in a bid to provide medical care to the largest possible number of refugees.

She added that she gives health lessons to women at refugee tents about the significance of breastfeeding to enhancing immunity and protecting against malnutrition, intestinal infections, and hepatitis. She noted that she had recently launched an initiative entitled: "You’re Our People” to give psychological support to displaced people who had fled northern and southern Gaza, and to help old people who suffer from chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

The health system in the Gaza Strip has lost at least 70 percent of its bed capacity, with only 14 out of 36 hospitals in the enclave are partially operating due to a severe shortage of staff and medical supplies. More than 885 medics have been martyred, hundreds injured, at least 310 others arrested and 130 ambulances destroyed in Zionist attacks, according to Gaza health authorities.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that medical supplies in Gaza are not enough at all to respond to the medical needs of the blockaded Palestinian territory. In a different initiative, Rafeef Azeez, who used to work with a local news site before the launching of the Zionist aggression on October 7, seeks to help people by means of posting humanitarian calls and appeals for help on social media. She said she has used her Facebook page as a platform for people’s voice and appeals, boasting that the number of her followers has recently risen to 11,000.

Azeez added that she has even started to get donations from young people and girls from Arab countries on social media platforms, using this money to buy food, water and tents for displaced people. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported on June 25 that 96 percent of Gaza’s population are facing a high risk of severe food insecurity. Under the tough current circumstances in the enclave, half a million are facing severe hunger in the Gaza Strip and more than 20 percent of Gazans sometimes cannot find something to eat for a whole day.

Commending on such initiatives that are mainly meant to alleviate the anguish and woes of Palestinians, Minister of Women’s Affairs Mona Al-Khalili said Palestinian women play a key role in boosting their families’ struggle and the Palestinian society’s steadfastness since they are a key partner in defending the people’s rights. Speaking to WAFA, the minister said that under the occupation’s aggression on the enclave, Palestinian women are playing a notable role in easing the suffering of people, citing the great efforts of doctors and nurses in providing medical treatment to those injured in continued attacks by occupying forces.

She said Palestinian women have launched various charitable and social initiatives in the territory, mainly including health, medical and psychological support and teaching. Since October 7, 2023, occupation forces have been launching a genocidal war against the defenseless people of Gaza, leaving more than 132,000, mostly women and children, dead or injured. — KUNA