An online row has emerged between the World Health Organization (WHO) and Israel after the UN health body said the Israeli military had ordered it to remove supplies from its warehouse in the south of Gaza, a claim Israel later denied.
“WHO received notification” from Israeli forces “that we must remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations would render them unusable,” its head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a message on X on Monday.
Today, @WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces informing us that we needed to remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations would render them unusable.
We call on #Israel withdraw the order and take all possible measures…
– Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 4, 2023
He called on Israel to withdraw the order and take steps to protect infrastructure such as hospitals.
The Israeli military responded Tuesday, saying it had never issued such a warning. “The truth is that we have not asked you to evacuate the warehouses and we have also made this clear (and in writing) known to the relevant UN representatives,” COGAT, the organization of the Israeli Ministry of Defense responsible for Palestinian civil affairs.
“We would expect, at least, a UN official to be more specific,” he adds.
“This is a social media feud that is flaring up and we can expect it to continue to rumble on,” said Tel Aviv Tribune’s Alan Fisher, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.
“We can see that the WHO has taken this seriously by starting to remove products from the warehouse,” our correspondent said, adding that the warehouse serves 11 hospitals in southern Gaza, and that officials there The UN feared that the withdrawal of supplies could cause hospitals in the south to become even more overwhelmed.
“This could escalate into a bigger diplomatic row,” he noted.
The WHO, like other UN agencies, has repeatedly called on Israel to limit its use of force to avoid targeting civilians and medical facilities during its military offensive in Gaza.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza”
Meanwhile, on Monday, Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, warned that an “even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” adding that “the conditions required for aid to the population of Gaza do not exist.”
Since the end of a seven-day truce, Israeli forces have pushed into southern Gaza, “forcing tens of thousands of people…to take refuge in increasingly confined spaces, desperate for food, water, shelter and safety,” Hastings said in a statement. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere to go. »
After Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel on October 7 that killed more than 1,100 people, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip, killing more than 15,900 Palestinians, including 6,600 children. Entire neighborhoods were pulverized; around 1.9 million people, more than 80 percent of the population, have fled their homes.
The WHO recorded an unprecedented number of attacks on the health system in the Gaza Strip, including 203 attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies and the detention of health workers.
“Influx of bodies”
After concentrating most of its air and ground raids on northern Gaza for more than a month, the Israeli army announced this weekend the expansion of its operations towards the south following the breakdown of the truce . The move has sparked serious concerns among health officials, who fear a further worsening of an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
“We are inundated with an influx of corpses,” Munir al-Bursh, director general of Gaza’s health ministry, told Tel Aviv Tribune on Monday, describing a collapsed health system unable to meet the needs of the population in a context of acute shortage. personnel and medical supplies.
Southern areas are overrun by civilians who escaped bombardment from the north after following Israeli evacuation orders which indicated that southern Gaza was a safe space. But as that area is now heavily bombarded and tanks approach Khan Younis, the main southern city, civilians describe a great sense of fear and frustration about where they will go next.
The WHO issued a statement warning that the intensification of military ground operations in Khan Younis “risks leaving thousands of people without health care, particularly from the region’s two main hospitals, as the number of injured and number of patients increases.”
In the south, thousands of people are now housed at the Nasser Medical Complex and 70,000 others at the 370-bed European Hospital in Gaza, the UN agency estimates.
