The head of the World Health Organization condemned military operations in hospitals and mentioned Kamal Adwan, the only hospital in service north of Gaza and which was the target of attacks on Friday.
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The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Saturday that the situation in the north of the Gaza Strip is “catastrophic”, due to the devastation of the war, with “intense military operations in and around health facilities”.
“The situation in the northern Gaza Strip is catastrophic“, declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in social networkhighlighting that “a severe shortage of medical supplies, associated with extremely restricted access, is depriving people of vital care.”
The situation in the north #Loop It’s catastrophic. Intensive military operations around and within health facilities and critical shortages of medical supplies, compounded by severely limited access, are depriving people of life-saving care.
The Ministry of Health in… pic.twitter.com/HIlqfD27uT
– Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 26, 2024
The WHO director general referred in particular to the situation in Kamal Adwan, the last operating hospital in northern Gaza, which was overrun by Israeli forces on Friday, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
According to the ministry, the attack on the Jabalia camp facilities, where Israel launched a major military operation earlier this month, led to the deaths of two children.
That department also accused Israeli forces of having detained hundreds of staff, patients and displaced people.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan, but said they had “not been informed of any live fire or attack in the hospital area.”
According to Tedros Ghebreyesus, after the WHO temporarily lost contact with its staff at the hospital during the chaos, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported that the siege had ended.
“But this came at a high price.“added the general director.
On Friday night, the WHO announced that three assistants and another professional were injured in the attack on the hospital and that dozens of assistants were detained at the health facility, which housed about 600 people, including patients, assistants and others.
“After the arrest of 44 male employees, only one employee, the hospital director and a doctor remain in the hospital to care for almost 200 patients who desperately need medical attention,” lamented Tedros Ghebreyesus this Saturday.
“The information about hospital facilities and medical equipment damaged or destroyed during the siege is deplorable,” he added.
According to the representative, “Gaza’s entire health system has been under attack for more than a year.“, since the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas attacked Israel, on October 7, 2023, triggering a war.
That attack killed 1,206 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Dozens of hostages kidnapped that day remain captive in Gaza by Hamas.
The Israeli retaliatory military campaign cost the lives of 42,924 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health, which the United Nations (UN) considers reliable.
“The WHO reiterates – it cannot be stressed enough – that hospitals must always be protected from conflicts“said the director general of the UN agency.
Any attack on hospital facilities “is a violation of international humanitarian law,” he stressed, defending that the only way to save what remains of Gaza’s health system, “which is collapsing, is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”
Source: Observadora
