WHO emphasized the urgent need to sustain hospitals in the Strip amidst Israel’s ongoing aggression.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated on Wednesday the urgency of securing an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to safeguard the healthcare system in Gaza from collapse.
WHO’s director-general wrote in a post on X that “lives depend on it,” emphasizing the urgent need to sustain hospitals in the besieged enclave.
“As the situation continues to worsen across the Strip, especially in the north, keeping hospitals functional is of utmost importance,” WHO’s chief said.
The UN organization pointed out that the Kamal Adwan Hospital continues to receive “a constant stream of trauma patients” due to Israel’s ongoing aggression in northern Gaza.
According to an assessment by WHO, Kamal Adwan Hospital is running on extremely limited human and medical resources.
“The hospital has just one pediatrician, one orthopedic surgeon and limited nursing staff,” Tedros said on X, accentuating that the medical facility and its equipment have sustained damage and so did its four ambulances that were destroyed during the latest siege.
WHO announced that it completed four missions over the last two weeks to Kamal Adwan Hospital delivering “medical supplies, food and water for patients”, while stressing that “much more is needed.”
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“Additionally, this week we have also provided 40,000 liters of fuel and medical supplies for 6 six hospitals in Gaza City,” the UN organization stated.
In light of the devastating situation of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, WHO transferred “23 critical patients with 21 companions” from the medical facility to Al-Shifa Hospital.
It also transferred “16 patients with 16 companions” from Al-Shifa to Nasser Medical Complex in what it described as a “multi-day mission to north Gaza in the past two days.”
WHO Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Dr Richard Peeperkon, revealed in a footage posted by the UN organization that “they are trying to bring medical supplies, blood and food for staff and patients,” and “transfer critical patients out of Kamal Adwan to Al-Shifa’s.”
Speaking on the type of injuries sustained by Palestinians in the Strip, WHO Trauma Team Leader, Dr Athanasios Gargavanis confirmed that they are “devastating.”
“We have neglected injuries out of blasts, out of explosions, gunshot wound injuries, and right now, the only lifeline to this hospital is the World Health Organization,” he stressed in the footage.
On his part, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, highlighted the immense difficulties facing the medical staff in treating patients.
“A large number still require surgical intervention, and we urgently need permission to bring in surgical teams to save as many of the remaining injured as possible,” Abu Safiya stressed.
“The situation is catastrophic in every sense, no water, no medicine, no food,” he said.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, urgently call to save dozens of injured people inside the hospital amid the ongoing Israeli siege and massacres in northern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Y4QwsFaA5w
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 31, 2024
‘Catastrophic’ Situation
The words of the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital were echoed a few days ago by WHO’s chief, who described the health situation in the north of Gaza as “catastrophic” due to the ongoing Israeli military operations around and inside medical facilities.
The UN official noted in a post on X on October 26 that the siege of the medical facilities and the “critical shortage of medical supplies” along with “severely limited access” to these medical facilities are the core of this catastrophic situation, which is depriving people of “life-saving care.”
Ghebreyesus revealed that the Health Ministry in Gaza informed the international organization that the siege on Kamal Adwan Hospital had ended, “but it came at a heavy cost.”
“Following the detention of 44 male staff members, only female staff, the hospital director, and one male doctor are left to care for nearly 200 patients in desperate need of medical attention,” he wrote on X.
Ghebreyesus also deplored the Israeli occupation army’s damage and destruction of the hospital’s facility and medical supplies during their siege of the hospital.
Genocide Continues
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 43,163 Palestinians have been killed, and 101,510 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
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Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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