Gaza: The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip highlighted that the number of medical personnel who currently operate in Gaza and northern Gaza governorates does not exceed 1,000 among 12,000 who had been providing services prior to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip. Assistant Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Health Dr. Maher Shamieh emphasized to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that only 8 percent of medical practitioners are operating in northern Gaza, due to the Israeli offensive, in addition to murdering and detaining medical personnel and the displacement of a sheer number of them to the southern Gaza Strip. According to Qatar News Agency, with the mounting Israeli offensive on the northern Gaza Strip, challenges emerge in front of healthcare providers who have been operating around the clock for 14 months, amid the decreasing number of medical practitioners and shortage of medical devices and essentials, he said. Dr. Shamieh stressed that the occupation forces intentionally targ et medical practitioners in Gaza and northern Gaza governorates, resulting in the degeneration of health sector and disrupting the operation of entire hospitals. According to official statistics, the number of martyrs among medical staff since the onset of the war on Gaza has reached roughly 1,055, with 319 others detained by the Israeli occupation forces, three of whom were killed inside prisons. The latest attack on medical personnel in the northern Gaza Strip occurred last Friday, when the Israeli occupation forces murdered the head of the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital by directly targeting him with a drone, followed by an Israeli airstrike on the hospital last Sunday, which resulted in the injury of the hospital's director and several medical staff members. The remaining medical practitioners in Gaza and the northern Gaza governorates are serving over 450,000 Palestinians according to a latest unofficial official figure on the number of residents who refused the forced evacuation from the northern Gaza Strip and remained either in their destroyed homes or in shelters and centers set up in schools, sports fields, and open agricultural lands. The Israeli occupation forces intentionally detained surgeons who perform life-saving operations for the injured, and this was revealed after the arrest of 40 medical staff members from Kamal Adwan Hospital a few weeks ago.