Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 15 June 2020 to Question 57229 on Gaza, what assessment his Department has made of the recent warning from the World Health Organization that within a week the health system in Gaza will be unable to care for critical cases of covid-19.

The UK remains concerned about the capacity of an already fragile health system in Gaza. We have provided £1.25 million funding (WHO with £630,000 and UNICEF with £620,000) to purchase and co-ordinate delivery of medical equipment, treat critical care patients, train frontline health workers and scale up laboratory testing capacity – mainly in Gaza. This funding helped to provide over 20,000 testing kits, 59,500 PPE items for around 4,900 health workers.

The British Consulate General also supported the delivery of 24 respirators to the Palestinian Ministry of Health for several hospitals across the West Bank and Gaza to help provide support for critical cases.