New Delhi: Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdullah M.A. Abushawesh on Friday, June 19, urgently called on India to send medical relief supplies and aid for the country’s devastated healthcare system at a press conference held in New Delhi. Further, he said that Palestinians face a “catastrophic” health crisis as a result of continued attacks by Israel.“If not India and the Indian people, then who? And if not now, then when?” he said, adding that “thousands of Palestinians” could be saved if only they could secure timely aid.Highlighting the alarm bells rung by multiple international humanitarian organisations reporting shortages of basic but critical medical supplies – anaesthesia, antibiotics, dialysis supplies, blood units, surgical equipment, saline and fuel to run hospital generators – Abushawesh said Israeli attacks have brought Palestinian health services to the “brink of collapse”.In a statement, the Palestinian appeal was extended to all countries, including India, with which Palestine has historically shared close ties.“The state of Palestine calls upon the international community, in particular the government of India and the humanitarian organisations, medical institutions, civil society organisations and all other Indian and international concerned parties to urgently act for the protection of the Palestinian health care sector,” the ambassador said at the briefing.Ambassador Abushawesh also appealed to the media to highlight the crisis in Palestine, its exact nature and the need for aid in the struggling region. He appealed to the mainstream media in India and the youth of the country to rely “not on the logic of power but the power of logic” while assessing the situation.In response to a question, he agreed that the Palestinian issue is not only political or one concerning international law, but also about global moral responsibilities.Unprecedented crisis, attacks by Israel continue“The scale of the crisis is alarming. During the previous year, Palestinian governmental hospitals in the West Bank performed approximately 65,000 surgeries. However, during the current year, only around 19,500 surgeries have been carried out, while more than 11,000 scheduled surgeries have been postponed [in 2026] due to shortage of medicines, supplies and operational capacities,” the statement said, adding that the country was in “desperate need” of international support for its healthcare system.Abushawesh pointed to overcrowded displacement camps, collapsed sanitation systems and shortages of clean water adding to the crisis. He referred to the Israeli attacks that began in October 2023 continuing despite the Gaza Peace Plan – an agreement with Israel and Hamas with the United States as a key mediator – being in place.Palestinians gather around a car hit in an Israeli strike in Gaza City, Thursday, June 18, 2026. Photo: AP/Jehad Alshrafi“Israel did not abide by the ceasefire; Israel has killed up to date more than 1,000 Palestinians since it signed the peace plan,” he said.Many parts of Palestine face humanitarian devastation on unprecedented scale as “a direct result of the ongoing Israeli genocidal war, military attacks, mass destruction of medical infrastructure and financial strangulation by Israel”, he said.The ambassador said it could not ensure peace “because of one of the primary signatories is the Israeli prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu]”. Despite Israel signing the peace plan, it has “violated every single aspect of this plan to end the conflict in Gaza,” he said.The detailed statement said that a vast majority of Palestinians are beneficiaries of the state’s public healthcare system, which was destroyed in Israeli bombing. Further, Palestinians who lost their sources of income during the Israeli war were provided state-funded health insurance, which has burdened the public health care system tremendously.The health crisis in the West Bank is also a result of severe financial strangulation by Israelis, including the withholding of Palestinian tax revenue. The resulting fiscal crisis has severely constrained the Palestinian Authority’s ability to fund hospitals, purchase medicines and pay healthcare workers.Appeal to IndiaReminding the Indian public and the government of their revolution against British colonisers, he said it had aided Palestinians in the mid-1930s. He recalled Gandhi’s opposition to the partition of Palestine and India’s recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the State of Palestine in 1988, and numerous Indian votes at the United Nations supporting the two-state solution.Ambassador Abushawesh said the Indian government has sent medical aid to Gaza in four tranches but some projects remain pending, including a promised hospital, waiting to be set up since 2017, which he said might now take off. He welcomed a $2.5 million aid for Palestinian refugees released earlier this week by the Indian government.The aid, funded in similar amounts in the past by Indian governments, goes to Palestine via the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).The ambassador also called on Indians to raise their voice and awareness, individually and at the institutional level, about the plight in Palestinian territories, especially the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.He also cited Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of the Aarogya Maitri Project where India pledged to provide “essential medical supply to any developing country affected by natural disaster or humanitarian crisis” and said that this is the moment for such aid to flow.