Abdullah Abu Deif, Agencies (Capitals)
A United Nations-backed committee confirmed in a report published yesterday that all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents face hunger crisis levels, with the risk of famine increasing every day, while the World Health Organization said that there are no longer functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, describing scenes of abandoned patients. They beg for food and water as “unbearable.”
The report issued by the Integrated Interim Classification of Food Security Committee stated that the percentage of families affected by high levels of acute food insecurity in Gaza is the largest ever recorded in the world.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated rapidly since Israel launched a massive military operation on October 7, with heavy bombardment destroying large areas of the coastal enclave in the following weeks.
Trucks carrying aid from Egypt delivered some food, water and medicine, but the United Nations says that the amount of food is only 10 percent of the amount needed by the residents of the Strip, most of whom have been displaced.
For its part, the United Nations World Health Organization reported that it led missions to two hospitals that were severely damaged, Al-Shifa and Al-Ahly, in the northern Gaza Strip the day before yesterday.
The representative of the World Health Organization in the Gaza Strip, Richard Peppercorn, said: “Our teams cannot describe the catastrophic situation facing the patients and medical teams” who are still there.
His statements came as diplomatic efforts intensified to reach a truce in the war, which health authorities in Gaza say has claimed the lives of 20,000 people, 70 percent of whom are women and children.
Al-Ahli Hospital became the last hospital institution still in service in the northern Gaza Strip, but its director, Fadel Naeem, announced that the facility had stopped working last Tuesday, after the Israeli army stormed it.
The World Health Organization-led mission revealed that Al-Ahli Hospital, which two days ago was “crowded with patients in need of emergency care,” is now “an empty shell,” Pepperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.
He added: “There are no longer operating rooms due to the lack of fuel, electricity, medical supplies, and medical staff, including surgeons and other specialists, and they have stopped working completely.”
Of Gaza's 36 total hospitals, only nine are now partially functioning, all in the south.
Peppercorn continued: “There are no longer hospitals in service in the north.”
Hospitals have been subjected to repeated Israeli bombing in Gaza since the outbreak of the war.
Pepperkorn pointed out that although the goal of the mission's visit on Wednesday was to deliver fuel, the lack of security guarantees meant that they could only deliver medical supplies and medicines, but that was not enough, according to him.
He added: “Without fuel, crews and other essentials, medicines will not make a difference, and all patients will die slowly and painfully.”
He said that in Al-Ahli Hospital, there are only 10 employees left who are doing everything in their power to provide basic first aid, while about 80 patients are taking refuge in a church on the hospital grounds and in the orthopedic department.
For his part, Sean Casey, head of the World Health Organization missions to Gaza, who was part of this mission, described the conditions as “incredible.”
At Al-Ahli Hospital, the team was walking in its yard while hearing the sound of gunfire near the site, according to what Casey told reporters from Rafah in southern Gaza.
“In the church, we saw an unbearable scene,” Casey recounted, describing 30 patients, including young children and some seriously injured, begging for water, not care. He added: “Currently, it is a place where people wait to die.” He renewed the increasingly urgent call for a ceasefire to allow the entry of sufficient amounts of aid, as well as the evacuation of a larger number of patients from Gaza. In response to a question about whether time is running out, Casey said: “I think it is too late.”
He explained: “We are dealing with starving adults and children, and everywhere we go, people ask us for food, even in hospitals… People with bleeding wounds ask for food.”
He concluded by saying: “If that is not an indication of despair, I don’t know what is.”
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