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Egypt medical aid truck delivers 1% of expected medicine to Gaza

June 16, 2021 at 11:59 am

Egyptian and Palestinian flags are seen on an aid truck at the Rafah crossing with Gaza on 23 May 2021 [SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images]

A video is circulating online of an Egyptian truck carrying medical aid to Gaza with just 50 boxes inside, just one per cent of the number of boxes that were expected, reports the New Arab.

There are three men standing outside the lorry. One climbs inside to show the camera the contents whilst the other comments that they expected 5,000 boxes.

According to one of the men, the boxes contain the antibiotic Meropenem.

https://twitter.com/imi_rr/status/1403300722553376771?s=20

Egypt has made several public pledges to support Palestine during the last air strikes on Gaza, which have not been matched by action on the ground.

READ: Egypt aid ship to arrive in Beirut this week

Prominent Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath remains in jail whilst two people were arrested for raising the Palestinian flag in Tahrir Square during the strikes.

One doctor, who volunteered to tend to the wounded in Gaza, was arrested because he tweeted about his trip through North Sinai.

Egypt pledged to allow wounded Palestinians into North Sinai to be treated in three hospitals, yet by 26 May, five days after the Israeli bombardment came to a halt, of the 2,000 people injured in strikes, it had let only 24 patients through.

Journalists reporting on Egypt’s treatment of the wounded Palestinians in North Sinai were abused by security, banned from filming on their arrival at Arish Hospital and one of the reporters’ phones was seized.

Gaza’s hospitals and medical professionals have struggled to respond to the huge number of wounded as the healthcare system is already struggling after a 14 years long blockade and a global pandemic with a shortage of medicine and medical staff.

During the offensive, five hospitals and Al-Remal Clinic, Gaza’s main COVID-19 laboratory, were hit.