The United Nations has warned of a public health catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and the spread of deadly diseases and epidemics among its residents, and its relief agency has admitted that Gazans face bombing, deprivation, disease and hunger “in an ever-shrinking space.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the Gaza Strip is now facing a public health catastrophe due to the collapse of its health system and the spread of diseases.
The Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lynn Hastings, also confirmed that Gaza has become “an ideal environment for epidemics and a public health disaster.”
In Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, a number of sick infants were placed together on each bed in the pediatric ward.
Head of the Pediatrics Department, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, said, “Many cases result in severe dehydration, including kidney failure or poor kidney performance.”
He added that there had already been up to 30 cases of hepatitis A, which has an incubation period of up to a month.
He continued, “We will be surprised after a month with huge numbers of hepatitis. This is a very dangerous indicator and is caused by overcrowding, eating unsuitable foods, and shared use of bathrooms.”
12 children are at risk of death
For his part, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, warned that 12 children were at risk of death as a result of the occupation’s storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, announcing the death of two out of 10 wounded in the emergency department.
Al-Qudra said in a statement published by the ministry via Telegram that the occupation forces medical teams to gather the wounded and children in the intensive care unit on the second floor only, and prevents them from water, food, electricity, and movement between the departments.
He also stated that the Israeli army deprived 12 children in care of milk, warning that they would lose their lives as a result of the electricity being cut off and their life support equipment being cut off.
In turn, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said that the occupation army gave Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Strip 4 hours to evacuate it, claiming that the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) was using it militarily.
A statement from the Ministry indicated that the occupation army arrested the director of the Jabalia Martyrs Medical Center following a bombing that targeted the center last night. According to the statement, “The occupation is frenzied and is bombing devastatingly, and two medical personnel were killed yesterday.”
“He didn’t know the family #Gaza Hunger before, but we meet more people who have not eaten for two or three days.
Some of them are forced to stop aid trucks and take food, before delivering it to shelters, so they can eat immediately.
“This has nothing to do with diversion of aid, but everything to do with complete desperation.”
Commissioner-General of UNRWA. pic.twitter.com/1SMPUcLPaL– United Nations News (@UNNewsArabic) December 14, 2023
Deprivation and diseases
Also on the humanitarian front, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that the residents of the Gaza Strip face bombing, deprivation, and diseases in an ever-shrinking area, adding, “The people of Gaza have never known hunger before, but we are meeting more people who have not eaten for a long time.” 2 or 3 days.
In a speech he delivered at the World Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, Lazzarini added that the residents of Gaza are running out of time and options, and stressed that they face bombing, deprivation, and diseases in a constantly shrinking area.
He said that what is happening in Gaza should anger anyone with principles and values in the world, and that the agency’s facilities were attacked 250 times, stressing that the hunger and scarcity of life’s necessities that the people of Gaza are experiencing is unprecedented.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent reported that martyrs and wounded were killed as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted two homes in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, one in the Brazil neighborhood and the other in the “Yabna” camp. The injured were transported to the Kuwaiti Hospital, where a number of people with injuries and burns of varying degrees arrived, including children.
In the latest toll it revealed, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the number of martyrs of the Israeli aggression had risen to 18,787 and the wounded to 50,897 since the seventh of last October.
