GAZA CITY, June 10 -- The number the Health Ministry put out on Tuesday is not really a number. It is a waiting room with no door. More than 16,500 people in Gaza, the ministry said, are sick enough to need treatment that does not exist here and cannot reach the treatment that does, because the crossings that would carry them out stay closed more often than they open.

Maher Shamia, the acting undersecretary of the ministry, laid the blame in one direction. The occupation bears full responsibility for this crisis, he said in figures reported by Al Jazeera, pointing to what he called the continued closure of the Rafah crossing, the main gateway out of the territory. The ministry went further than bureaucratic language usually allows, accus...