WHO Denounces Dire Health Situation in Gaza

On Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus charged that Gaza's health system was already on its knees and that the loss of another minimally functioning hospital is a severe blow.

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"The attacks on hospitals, health workers and patients must stop, we need a ceasefire now," the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) demanded, referring to the actual destruction of another hospital facility by Israeli forces this weekend, with the death of eight patients, including a nine-year-old boy.

Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza was raided by the Israeli army for four days last week, while WHO reported that many health workers were detained.

Less than a third of Gaza's 36 hospitals are at least partially functioning, including only one in the north of the Strip, so the head of that UN agency demanded that attacks on hospitals, health workers and patients must stop. "Cease fire now," he insisted.

Tedros stated that many patients at Kamal Adwan had to self-evacuate at great risk to their health and safety, as ambulances could not reach the center.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update that Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital on Saturday and, according to media reports, an Israeli military bulldozer razed the tents of several displaced people outside the hospital, killing and injuring an unconfirmed number of people.

Gaza health authorities have not updated the death toll from the telecommunications and Internet blackout that began last Thursday and continued through the weekend, figures that at the time totaled more than 19,000 dead and more than 52,500 injured since Oct. 7.

According to WHO and OCHA, the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory is dire, with the majority of the population displaced, overcrowded in a small area in the south, facing appalling sanitary conditions and lacking food and water.