Cancer patients on the rise in Gaza

Dr. Yousef Ibrahim, the head of the environment quality authority, said on Tuesday that the number of cancer and kidney failure patients in the Gaza Strip is on the rise as a result of the Israeli use of depleted uranium and phosphorus bombs in the war on Gaza last year.

Ibrahim, in a statement, said that the poisonous and dangerous material used by the Israeli occupation forces during that war had infiltrated into the Palestinian soil as well as into the bodies of the victims and casualties of that war.

He said that uranium, zinc, mercury and cobalt, which are cancerous materials, are now found in the Gaza soil.

He appealed to all regional and international organizations to immediately and urgently intervene to help in evading the destructive influence of those materials on the Palestinian environment in Gaza.

For his part, Dr. Mohammed Al-Ghoul, the minister of prisoners in Gaza, has called for putting Israeli leaders on trial as war criminals for their crimes against the Palestinian people and prisoners.

He told a seminar on prisoners in the Islamic University on Tuesday that there would be no settlement for the Palestine cause without the release of all prisoners from Israeli occupation jails.