UN sends aid to Gaza hospital despite “huge risks”

O Commissioner General of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, and the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, issued a joint statement, underlining that the quantities delivered are “far from being sufficient” to meet the needs.

According to the press release, this is the second delivery of vital equipment to this hospital, since the start of the war between the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israel, which led to the “total siege” of Gaza.

The last shipment of material occurred on October 24, when the WHO carried out the operation “during great insecurity” and given the pressing lack of resources at the medical center, whose conditions “are disastrous”, those responsible also highlighted.

According to the UN, Al Shifa is forced to have almost two patients per stretcher, the emergency room is full and there is a huge lack of medical personnel, who care for the injured and sick in the corridors, on the floor and in the open air.

“The areas of northern Gaza cannot and should not be isolated or deprived of humanitarian assistance. Patients cannot be denied the health care to which they are entitled and urgently need. Aid must reach all of Gaza”, stressed the UN in the statement.

Likewise, he recalled that the vast majority of medical centers are running out of supplies and fuel, a fundamental resource for the functioning of hospitals and to which Israel prevented entry for a month, for fear of being used by Hamas, a movement considered terrorist by the European Union and the United States of America and which has controlled the enclave since 2007.

“UNRWA and WHO renew their urgent appeal for the delivery of fuel to humanitarian agencies in the Gaza Strip. Without fuel, hospitals and other essential facilities such as desalination plants and bakeries will not be able to function and more people will certainly die as result”, warned the UN.

A total of 81 trucks with humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip today through the Rafah border crossing, and 12 ambulances transported several injured people to Egyptian territory and removed foreigners stranded in that Palestinian enclave, according to several sources. However, this new aid shipment did not, once again, include fuel.

The Gaza Strip has been heavily bombed by Israel since the unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement on Israeli territory, on October 7, which left more than 1,400 dead, mostly civilians, around 5,000 injured and more than 200 hostages.

Israel’s retaliation began with cuts in food, water, electricity and fuel supplies and daily bombings, followed by a ground offensive that now has the city of Gaza under siege.

The war between Israel and Hamas, which today entered its 33rd day and continues to threaten to spread throughout the Middle East region, has so far killed 10,569 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, including 4,324 children, plus 25,400 injured and around 1.5 million displaced, according to the most recent report from local authorities.

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