WHO: Main Gaza hospital an empty shell with graves
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the massive destruction inflicted on Gaza’s largest hospital, reduced to “an empty shell” with human graves following the latest Israeli siege.
Palestinian news agency (WAFA) reported WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying in a post on X that a team of WHO staff had managed to tour Al-Shifa to assess the situation after the Israeli occupation forces ended a two-week siege and attacks on the facility which caused massive destruction and led to scores of deaths among patients and medical staff.
“WHO personnel managed to reach Al-Shifa – once the backbone of the health system in Gaza, which is now an empty shell with human graves after the latest siege. The team saw at least five dead bodies,”Tedros said.
“Most of the buildings in the hospital complex were extensively destroyed and most of the assets damaged or reduced to ashes. Even restoring minimal functionality in the short term seems implausible.”
He stressed the need for “an in-depth assessment by a team of engineers to determine if the remaining buildings are safe.”
A WHO-led mission reached the hospital on Friday, after multiple failed attempts since March 25.
He said that the recent efforts by WHO and associated agencies to revive basic services at the hospital “are now lost and Palestinians are once again deprived of access to lifesaving health care services”.
According to the WHO, only 10 of Gaza’s 36 main hospitals remain even partially functional.
Tedros said urgent action was needed in Gaza as “famine looms, disease outbreaks spread and trauma injuries increase” among the trapped population.
He called for the “protection of remaining health facilities in Gaza, protection of health and humanitarian workers and the opening of additional land crossings to allow access into and across north Gaza”.
He also called for a “functional deconfliction mechanism, unimpeded access of humanitarian aid into and across the Gaza Strip, and a ceasefire”. – Bernama