WHO gets through to Gaza hospital

Geneva – Gaza’s largest hospital, which has been hard-hit by Israel’s war against Hamas, has partially re-established services, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday after reaching the facility for the first time in more than two weeks.

The United Nations health agency said it and partners had reached the Al-Shifa hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, delivering desperately needed fuel and medical supplies.

“The team reported that Al-Shifa, previously Gaza’s premier hospital, has [partially] re-established services,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the social media platform, X.

The hospital, which WHO described as “a death zone” after it largely ceased operations following raids and occupation by Israeli troops in November, now has 60 medical staff, Tedros said.

It also has “a surgical and medical ward with 40 beds, an emergency department, four operating theatres, basic emergency obstetric and gynaecological services”.

There is a “limited haemodialysis unit, minimal laboratory services [and] basic radiology services”, he added.

The WHO-led convoy to the hospital delivered 9 300 litres of fuel and medical supplies to cover 1 000 trauma and 100 kidney dialysis patients, he said.

The agency had been striving to reach Al-Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza, and said this week it had to cancel six planned missions there due to lacking security.

Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes in Gaza since the war erupted.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and of using medical facilities as command centres, a charge denied by the Islamist group.

WHO said this week only 15 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, most of them in the south. The few barely functioning hospitals remaining in the north face severe shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel. –