2023-10-18 14:00:12
The bombing against the Al Ahli Arab hospital, in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has caused hundreds of deaths and injuries, according to Palestinian sources, has raised the condemnation of the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health and social groups that cry out for the protection of the civilian population and the arrival of humanitarian and medical aid.
“The attack on the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza is unprecedented in its magnitude, but is in line with attacks against health facilities in the occupied Palestinian territories,” said WHO representative for Palestine, Richard Peeperkorn.
This hospital was one of the twenty in the northern part of the Gaza Strip that were subject to the same evacuation order to the south that the Israeli Army gave to the entire population of that part of the Palestinian enclave where 1.1 million reside. people.
“The hospital was in operation and patients, health workers and internally displaced persons were taking refuge there,” the WHO said after this attack last night, whose responsibility neither Israel nor the Islamist group Hamas assumes and which has sparked global condemnation.
“The evacuation order has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, the critical condition of many patients and the lack of ambulances, personnel, beds in the health system and alternative shelters for the displaced,” the organization explained.
From the beginning, the WHO warned that evacuating hospitals, where there are everything from babies in incubators to patients in critical conditions who depend on medical equipment to continue living, was not realistic.
The WHO has once again called for the active and immediate protection of the civilian population and health care, especially after the death of 28 health workers in several attacks, which have also targeted ambulances and different types of Palestinian health care facilities. .
“Evacuation orders must be rescinded. International humanitarian law must be respected, which means that healthcare must be actively protected and never targeted,” the WHO emphasized.
After the attack on the Al Ahli hospital, the World Health Organization estimates that, so far, 115 health facilities, members of the medical staff and ambulances have suffered attacks in the twelve days since the start of the war between Israel and the movement. Islamist Hamas.
The representative of the OMS for Palestine, Richard Peeperkorn. He implored that food, water, medicine and fuel be allowed into this Palestinian territory so that the hospitals continue to function and are protected, as provided for by international humanitarian law.
“If a hospital is not safe, then what is safe,” he asked, after remembering that thousands of displaced people have sought refuge in these facilities and their surroundings because they consider them places that will not be the target of attacks.
“All the hospitals are full of people,” he said.
Of the 35 hospitals in Gaza, only four are not operating due to the serious damage they have suffered, but all are using up the last of their essential supplies, including equipment to treat war wounded, amputations, among other cases.
Most hospitals only have one to two days of fuel left to run the electric generators, after the total interruption of conventional supply.
Health personnel after the airstrike on the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. EFE/EPA/MOHAMMED KNOW
Red Cross: Hospitals must be sanctuaries of life
He International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed its “shock and horror” at the death of hundreds of people in the attack on the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, joining the condemnations of different humanitarian, social and political organizations.
“Hospitals should be sanctuaries to preserve life, not scenes of death and destruction. “No patient should be murdered in a hospital bed, nor a doctor when trying to save other people,” said a statement from the organization, which specializes in humanitarian care in conflict zones.
ICRC insisted that hospitals must be protected by international humanitarian law.
For its part, the International NGO Doctors Without Borders She declared herself “horrified” and, in a statement, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, an MSF doctor in Gaza, recounted what happened: “We were operating in the hospital, there was a strong explosion and the ceiling fell on the operating room. “This is a massacre.”
Escalation at the Israel-Lebanon border could threaten the health of the Middle East
The World Health Organization (WHO) office for the Eastern Mediterranean warned today that the escalation taking place on the border between Lebanon and Israel could threaten the health, security and well-being of the population of the region. Middle East if hostilities do not stop.
“Twelve days ago, the Eastern Mediterranean region – already facing some of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes – had to confront a new emergency involving Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, which has now reached unprecedented proportions. catastrophic”, the speech began on WHO regional director Ahmed al Mandhariin a session with the media at the headquarters of the EFE agency, in Cairo.
But, he noted that “just as worrying is the extension of the conflict to other parts of the region. “The escalation of the conflict on the border between Israel and Lebanon could destabilize neighboring countries and threaten the security, health and well-being of people throughout the region.”
For this reason, the Omani expert called for “an end to hostilities” between the Palestinian and Israeli territories, as well as “on the border between Israel and Lebanon, where Lebanese civilians have been killed and injured,” without mentioning Israel.
“Until now, however, the conflict has continued to intensify and the human tragedy grows,” he concluded.
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