'Nightmare Playing Out Across...': WHO Decries Gaza Health System, Reiterates Calls for Ceasefire

The health system in Gaza is being destroyed, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Sunday as he reiterated calls for a ceasefire. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also hailed Gaza’s medical workers who continue their work under increasingly dire circumstances.

“The decimation of the Gaza health system is a tragedy,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “We persist in calling for CeasefireNow.” “In the face of constant insecurity and inflows of wounded patients, we see doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and more continue striving to save lives,” Tedros said.

The UN health agency has long been sounding the alarm about the state of health care since the bloodiest-ever war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented attack inside Israel on October 7. The militants killed about 1,140 people and seized around 250 hostages, 129 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza. Israel’s withering military campaign, including massive aerial bombardment, has killed 20,424 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people have endured dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine due to an Israeli siege, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks. “Al-Shifa was once Gaza’s biggest hospital. But relentless hostilities and massive numbers of wounded people have brought its capacities to its knees. Now, it can only deliver the most basic of first aid,” Tedros said.

The supply of 19,200 litres of generator fuel delivered on Saturday will help revive vital services. However, WHO said more will be needed. The world health body also said that Al-Shifa is providing refuge to 50,000 displaced people. “Al-Shifa is a microcosm of the nightmare playing out across Gaza, where drastic shortages of medicines, food, power, water and – above all – safety imperil the population,” the WHO chief said.

– ‘Unbearable’ –

Of Gaza’s original 36 hospitals, only nine are now partially functional, all of them in the south and all of them overwhelmed. After missions last week to two badly damaged hospitals in the north, Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli, WHO staff described “unbearable” scenes of largely abandoned patients, including young children, begging for food and water.

WHO warned that even as healthcare needs soar, only 38 percent of pre-conflict hospital beds remained available in the Palestinian territory and only 30 percent of original health staff were still working. At the same time, hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes since the war erupted.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and using the medical facilities as command centres, a charge denied by the Islamist group. As of December 20, WHO had registered 246 attacks on health care in Gaza, including hospitals and ambulances, resulting in 582 deaths and 748 injuries.

(With agency inputs)