Live briefing Israel pledges heavy punishment after gunmen kill three in West Bank
‘Chaos’ and ‘no hygiene equipment’ at Gaza hospitals, U.N. aid officer says
Aid workers and humanitarian organizations continue to describe devastating conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip, sounding the alarm over chronic food shortages, deadly Israeli strikes and a nearly collapsed medical system in the north, where only one hospital remained functional as of this past week, according to U.N. officials.
Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer for the U.N. agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), speaking to Britain’s Channel 4 News, recounted chaos and devastation she witnessed at Nasser Hospital after an Israeli strike on the humanitarian zone of al-Mawasi, stating that similar scenes unfold after nearly every such attack.
“It’s chaos. There is blood on the floor, there is no hygiene equipment, doctors are trying to mop up the blood with water — there’s spreading infection,” she told Channel 4. “I’ve had a woman scream at me in absolute despair and horror because her son was killed in a strike in the so-called humanitarian zone, her daughter was lying on the bed next to her, paralyzed, and she’s screaming at us because she said, ‘The Israelis told us to move here because it was safe,’” she added.
“In the next room, there’s a toddler who has lost two limbs with no parents, and this is just on repeat. This is what we see after every incident,” she said.
About 7 percent of Gaza’s population has been killed or injured since the start of the conflict in October 2023, according to the United Nations. The World Health Organization has verified 654 attacks on health-care facilities, which have resulted in 886 deaths.
Rik Peeperkorn, a doctor and WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza, said late last week at a U.N. Security Council meeting that Gaza’s health sector was being “systematically dismantled and pushed to the breaking point,” warning that more than 12,000 people were on waiting lists to seek urgent medical treatment abroad and that only 16 out of 36 hospitals in the Strip remained partially functional.
“Hospitals have become battlegrounds, rending them out of service and depriving those in need of lifesaving care,” he said."
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