UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 (APP): Israeli forces have intensified their offensive in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city, with Gazan health officials saying Tuesday that dozens of people have been killed in the fighting.
The United Nations said a hospital was struck, cutting off access to already limited medical care.
Speaking in Geneva, Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that Al-Khair Hospital was “one of the two hospitals that is now being raided”, while Nasser Hospital was “now basically besieged around the hospital and has no way in and out”.
“I know it must be a horrible scenario on the ground there with people not knowing what the next minutes will bring.”
The WHO spokesperson added that only 14 hospitals are still functioning in Gaza – seven in the north and seven in the south – where health needs are overwhelming after more than three months of heavy bombardment by Israeli military since Oct 7.
The development follows an alert on X, formerly Twitter, from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday evening about reports of “continuous fighting” near hospitals in Kheir Younis, where violence prevented “newly injured people outside the hospitals from being reached and receiving care”.
The situation is “absolutely unacceptable and not what any health facility anywhere in the world should go through”, Mr. Lindmeier insisted, noting that some 20 hospitals no longer function across Gaza.
Underscoring the dire humanitarian situation in the enclave, the WHO spokesperson described how desperate and hungry Gazans have become, in their search for food. “One of the convoys had mainly fuel for hospitals on it but the people were holding it up as multiple times it was trying to move forward and trying to leave and trying to get onto the road because they were so desperate looking for food.”
Echoing that warning, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that more than half a million people in Gaza continue to face “catastrophic food insecurity levels”.
The risk of famine increases each day as conflict continues to limit the delivery of lifesaving food assistance, said Abeer Etefa, WFP’s Middle East And North Africa Senior Communications Officer and spokesperson.
“It is the largest concentration of people in what looks like famine-like conditions anywhere in the world. And also how fast we got to this point is extremely concerning.”
The WFP spokesperson also noted that children who had been evacuated for treatment on the Egyptian side of the border appeared malnourished, underweight and “extremely thin”.
She added: “If we don’t have a more humanitarian pause, a ceasefire, more access to people, we’re going to see, you know, these people are starving already and they will be in a very difficult situation.”
Meanwhile, an official of UNRWA, the UN agency mandated to care for Palestinian refugees, said that not only bombs and bullets, but Gaza’s siege is also the “silent killer”
That’s according to Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s Director of Communications for UNRWA, who spoke about her most recent visit to the Strip on Monday.
“This was my second trip since the war began. I try to go whenever it’s possible to express solidarity with the people there who are severely impacted by this brutal war and also to see our colleagues who continue to serve the communities through their humanitarian mission,” she said in a statement.
“This time, however, I visited the middle areas, including Deir al-Balah, and then in the south, I went to Rafah and Khan Younis.
“It was absolutely desperate. Wherever you looked, some people are displaced, people asking for assistance, and people were just exhausted after three and a half months of what has been a very brutal war.
“I think that what was different to the first visit I took is how congested a city like Rafah has become.
“The population of Rafah in the south has quadrupled since the war began. People kept fleeing, looking for shelter in that part of Gaza, in the hope that they will find safety and protection.
“Wherever you drove, wherever you walked, wherever you looked, the city was covered with these little structures that people who fled to the area have set up. They’re very basic, just a couple of wooden poles covered with plastic sheeting. That’s all people can find, and these have become home to many, many people.
“When I was there, you couldn’t even send a simple WhatsApp message, and you could forget about trying to place a call from one mobile phone to another.
“The majority of people feel extremely isolated from each other and the rest of the world. This also contributes to a lack of safety.
“Imagine, you’re in the middle of a war zone, and you need to call an ambulance. Or you want to call for help, check on your loved ones. You simply cannot do it.”
APP/ift
