Genocide can be exemplified through the suffering of patients with kidney failure. As reports indicate, approximately 45% of them have died due to the lack of minimum dialysis services needed.
Dialysis is a vital and non-negotiable procedure, typically performed three to four times a week to maintain the body’s internal balance. It is needed for removing toxins, waste products, and excess fluids.
However, the near-total collapse of the healthcare system, coupled with the destruction of the only specialized hospital for this condition in the Gaza Strip, has forced patients to rely on just one dialysis session per week at best—a frequency that is medically insufficient and leads to the dangerous accumulation of toxins in the blood.
This situation results in severe health complications, including high blood pressure, shortness of breath, cardiac arrhythmias, significant swelling, chronic fatigue, and, in advanced cases, coma or death. Reducing the number of dialysis sessions not only compromises quality of life but directly threatens life itself, turning each passing day into renewed physical and psychological suffering.
What kidney patients in Gaza are enduring today can only be described as a form of slow death, unfolding in silence amid an overwhelming medical and humanitarian failure.
Abdallah Sharsharah
02/06/2025
