the NGO Tulipe sent “4.5 tonnes of health products” for the Gazan population

The humanitarian association Tulipe is, at the end of December, on its third shipment of medical equipment to Gaza. “Today we have 200,000 patients who have chronic needs,” explains the director of operations.

“We sent 4.5 tonnes of health products, which corresponds to around 50 000 treatments for Palestinian patients”, said Alexandre Laridan, director of operations of the Tulipe association on Friday December 29 on franceinfo, a week after the airlift organized on Wednesday December 20 and Friday December 22. This is the third shipment of medical equipment by the NGO since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.

The association has the status of a pharmaceutical establishment. She works with large groups in the sector in France who give her equipment and medicines. “The airlift was organized thanks to the Quai d’Orsay crisis center with whom we work on this type of humanitarian conflict”explains Alexandre Laridan. “The crisis center has gathered the needs in Gaza in coordination with the World Health Organization. And the European Union is offering several airlifts every month”.

The planes land in Egypt, then the humanitarian aid reaches the Palestinian town of Rafah via the southern border of the Gaza Strip, in coordination with the Israeli and Palestinian authorities. “Today we have 200,000 patients who have chronic needs”, explains the operations director at Tulipe. This is the first emergency for the humanitarian association: to treat “those who have diabetes, hypertension”. The NGO also sends a lot of anti-infectives, painkillers and treatments for “50 000 pregnant women and a million children in a precarious situation, (…) especially in the hygiene situation in which most of the population lives who find themselves refugees in the southern part of the country”.

Only eight hospitals are still operating

The difficulty for humanitarian associations, like Tulipe, is also to find hospital centers that are still functioning in the Gaza Strip. “You should know that today there are eight hospitals operating out of 36”underlines Alexandre Laridan.

Since October 7 and the Hamas attack which triggered this war between the Palestinian political party in power and Israel, the NGO Tulipe has sent 9.5 tons of medical equipment to Gaza thanks to three airlifts, one organized each month . “Obviously, we are preparing to work in the coming months because we know that the crisis will be very long”says Alexandre Laridan.