WHO describes grim scenes in hospitals in northern Gaza
Northern Gaza no longer has functioning hospitals, the World Health Organization’s director-general said, describing the horror scenes witnessed by aid workers in the ruins of two partially destroyed medical facilities.
Aid workers who visited Al-Ahli and Al-Shifa hospitals on Wednesday on a rare humanitarian mission to deliver supplies “struggled to describe the enormous impact the recent attacks have had on these health facilities,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO. in a rack posted on social media.
At Al-Ahli, emergency workers found rows of dead bodies outside the hospital, while seriously injured civilians writhed in pain on the floor and pews of the chapel inside, he said.
In a video that Dr. Tedros posted on social media, a member of the medical mission stands in the chapel, with injured people and crucifixes on the wall visible behind him.
“There are patients here who have been injured for more than a month and have not had surgery; there are patients who have had surgery and are now developing post-operative infections because the hospital does not have enough antibiotics,” says the first responder in the video, Sean Casey.
“They suffer enormously here,” he adds. “This is a completely unacceptable situation.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs took part in the mission, which it said was only the third humanitarian convoy to reach northern Gaza since a lull in fighting ended on December 1 due to “the ongoing hostilities”.
An Israeli government spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the WHO’s claims. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as command and control centers, accusations that Hamas and its medical staff have denied. The Israeli military says it has discovered tunnels and weapons, including at Al-Shifa, the area’s largest hospital complex, which it sees as evidence of its accusations.
Diplomats at the United Nations Security Council held intensive negotiations this week over a resolution calling for an end to fighting in the Gaza war and a significant increase in aid deliveries. According to diplomats, the United States postponed the vote and was the only Security Council member to block demands for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, vetoing two such resolutions.
Dr. Tedros said a ceasefire was necessary “to strengthen and replenish remaining health facilities, provide medical services needed for thousands of wounded and those in need of other essential care, and above all to stem the bloodshed and death to stop.”
Both hospitals visited by the team of aid workers on Wednesday cannot provide much more than first aid – meaning there are no functioning hospitals left in northern Gaza, he said. And there are only a few doctors and nurses left in Al-Ahli who can provide limited care to seriously injured people in urgent need of surgery and other complex procedures, he added.
Dr. Tedros said emergency workers outside Al-Ahli found a courtyard full of bodies lined up in rows as staff members could not leave the hospital to bury them safely. Emergency workers also encountered 80 injured people, including the elderly and young children, taking shelter in the hospital’s chapel and orthopedics department, he added.
“They included a 10-year-old girl who lost her leg and had no family to care for her, and an elderly man awaiting surgery for a gunshot wound to the chest that he might never get, whose entire family had been murdered,” said Dr. Tedros.
On Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said only nine of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were even “partially functional.”
These were all in southern Gaza, which has been swamped in recent weeks by hundreds of thousands of displaced people fleeing violence, and were operating at three times their normal capacity, the UN said in a statement.