Israeli defense officials have warned that the health system in the blockaded Gaza Strip was close to collapse, according to Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday.
In an assessment to Israel's security cabinet, the officials warned that the deteriorating health conditions in the Palestinian territory would make it difficult for the Israeli army to fight in Gaza for a long time.
The assessment warned that the Gaza situation would not only make it difficult for Israel to receive international support for any action in Gaza, but "could also lead to intense international intervention".
It warned that injured civilians in Gaza would not be able to receive initial medical attention.
According to Haaretz, Israel has received a report on Gaza health situation from an international medical agency, which shows that around 6,000 Gazans with bullet wounds are still awaiting urgent operations.
"Most of the wounded are not receiving proper medical care and a quarter have developed bone infections that if untreated will lead to amputations," the report warned.
"Gaza is seriously short of doctors, particularly specialists, because any physician who could find work in another country has emigrated," the report said.
The report said that Gaza hospitals were missing 60 percent of their required drugs, particularly generic drugs, antibiotics and painkillers.
More than 250 Palestinians have been martyred by Israeli army gunfire -- and thousands more injured -- since Palestinians in the Gaza Strip began staging weekly protests along the buffer zone in March of last year.
Demonstrators demand the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.
They also demand an end to Israel's 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave's economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.
