The Gaza Strip’s only Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinic “was destroyed” this week by an Israeli military air strike against Hamas targets that destroyed an adjacent building, the organization has said.
The clinic, run by the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA), was the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s (IPPF) only “local member” in Gaza.
In a statement on Thursday, PFPPA said their center “was destroyed” on Oct. 8 “following an Israeli airstrike to an adjacent building.”
The organization took a critical tone, claiming that women in Gaza were already being denied “sexual and reproductive health care and rights” under 16 years of “Israeli occupation,” and that following the recent Israeli strikes against Hamas, the center was now “completely cut off” from providing its services.
Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip for 16 years after it seized power in a violent coup. Israel withdrew its forces and settlements in 2005.
The PFPPA center was destroyed one day after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack in southern Israel.
The Iran-backed Islamic terror group murdered over 1,300 men, women, and children, and injured over 3,000 more, in Israeli border towns last weekend. Hamas also fired a barrage of more than 4,500 rockets, abducted women and children, and engaged in acts of rape and torture on a massive scale.
Israel declared a state of war following the attacks.
The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) response has focused on striking senior Hamas officials and commanders, as well as infrastructure such as financial, construction, command and control, intelligence, research, and development.
Israeli Air Force strikes have targeted various neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip that had “lots of cameras, infrastructure, and other facilities.”
The purpose of the strikes, an IDF spokesperson has said, is to ensure “that Hamas will no longer have any ability to strike, harm, kill any Israeli civilians.”
The Israeli military also recently warned Gaza civilians in the north to evacuate to the south of the enclave as it prepares for ground military operations in the coming days. The IDF charged that Hamas will use Palestinians as “human shields.”
‘Our Clinic Is Unusable’
The PFPPA’s statement was critical of Israel’s Oct. 10 decision to block the entry of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies following Hamas’s attack.The statement, which made no mention of Hamas’s attack on Israel, noted that “Gazans are only able to access electricity for two hours every day,” a supply that is expected to run out in the coming days.
The statement also decried what it called “16 years of an illegal blockade” for the pressure it put on Gaza’s medical system, which PFPPA said “cannot cope with the level of injuries from the current bombardment.”
“Emergency services and medical supplies are not able to reach affected people, including pregnant women, women in labor, and newborn babies.”
Ammal Awadallah, the center’s executive director, expressed concern for the more than 37,000 pregnant women she said are in Gaza, and urged humanitarian aid be allowed into Gaza.
On Monday, two days after Hamas launched its attack, IPPF Director-General Alvaro Bermejo said the organization is “deeply concerned about civilians caught up in the recent attacks, and we are devastated by the loss of civilian lives.”
On Thursday, a Palestinian health worker from PFPPA, Wafa Abu Hasheish, claimed that she’s received calls from women seeking help as they go into labor or have “a miscarriage due to the bombings.”
Mr. Bermejo said in the Thursday statement that the organization’s local teams are “contingency planning” to support women “trapped in Gaza amid escalating violence” as well as “the more than five million Palestinians currently living under Israeli occupation who will require critical support to continue accessing sexual and reproductive health care.”
Under Hamas rule, abortion is illegal except in an emergency to save the mother’s life. Some women reportedly travel to Israel for an abortion, where the procedure is legal.
The PFPPA was established in Jerusalem in 1964.
