Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital Has Literally Become a Graveyard: WHO

April 12, 2024 Hour: 8:26 am

On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) denounced that Al Shifa hospital, which was the largest healthcare facility in the northern Gaza Strip, is completely destroyed.

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A WHO mission discovered that Israeli occupation forces buried bodies of Palestinians in the areas outside the hospital, where other unburied bodies were also found.

“Everything is destroyed and burned, the oxygen plants, the CT machines, the laboratories, and surgical equipment like ventilators and anesthesia machines. There are no walls left, and in the specialized surgery building, there is a large crater from the basement to the second floor,” said Thanos Gargavanis, the WHO chief surgeon.

“Graves were dug in the open spaces, some with names, others without. There were also abandoned bodies, some covered with plastic, others not,” he added.

“The situation is beyond words.”

OCHA colleagues were appalled by what they witnessed in #Gaza‘s Al Shifa Hospital as they went there with @WHO, @UNMAS & @UNDSS to support dignified burials.

Hospitals must never be turned into battlegrounds. The war must end. pic.twitter.com/wvRkyj2xJX

— UN Humanitarian (@UNOCHA)
April 9, 2024

The WHO doctor indicated that the WHO intends to organize dignified burials for the people killed in that hospital. As a way to provide comfort to families, it also plans to place the bodies in individual bags to be identified later through DNA tests.

“We are back to having to provide care without equipment as was done sixty years ago,” Gargavanis said, adding that there is only one oxygen production unit left in the entire northern Gaza Strip.

He also lamented that Israel does not allow regular evacuation of the injured and sick, but does so very slowly. Currently, there are 9,000 people on the waiting list to leave Gaza for Egypt and other Arab countries willing to receive them.

Gargavanis said that Israel must stop treating medical equipment, medicines, and other sanitary supplies as if they were potentially used for military purposes, severely hindering their entry into Gaza.

#FromTheSouth News Bits | Palestine: The Erez crossing, which connects Israel to northern Gaza, remains closed and no humanitarian aid is allowed to enter the Strip through it. pic.twitter.com/AaaM5BOkJ8

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish)
April 10, 2024