The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, described as “totally unacceptable” the attacks on the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, where, according to the Israeli Army, militants of the Islamist movement Hamas are hiding.
“Hospitals cannot be battlefields and we are extremely concerned about the safety of medical staff and patients,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who met in Geneva on Tuesday with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and the Minister of Health, Uriel Menachem Buso.
The Ethiopian expert stated that the WHO has lost contact with the staff of the main hospital in Gaza and regretted that it has not received updated information on the dead and injured in Gaza for three days, “which hinders the ability to evaluate the functioning of the health system.” “. system”.
“What we know is that only a quarter of Gaza’s hospitals are still functioning and 26 of the 36 have closed due to damage caused by the attacks or because they ran out of fuel,” lamented the head of the WHO in his weekly press. conference.
“Before the conflict, there were around 3,500 hospital beds in Gaza, now it is estimated that there are only 1,400, and with a much larger number of patients, doctors and nurses have to make impossible decisions about who lives and who does not.”, Tedros said.
The director general of the WHO reiterated the need for fuel to enter Gaza to supply hospitals and other basic services, on a day in which Israel authorized, for the first time, the entry of 23,000 liters of fuel into Gaza, although initially only for trucks transporting humanitarian aid.
“At least 120,000 liters of fuel are needed per day to power hospital generators, ambulances, desalination plants, waste treatment plants and telecommunications,” Tedros warned.
The Israeli Army announced on Tuesday night that it was carrying out “a selective and precision operation against Hamas in a specific sector of the Al Shifa hospital,” the largest in the Gaza Strip.
The hospital has been without electricity, drinking water or food for several days and is home to around nine thousand people, including displaced people, medical personnel and patients, including more than 30 premature babies.
France expressed this Wednesday its “deep concern about the military operations in the Al Shifa hospital”, stating that the Palestinian population “should not pay for Hamas’ crimes.”
The country also recalls “the absolute need for Israel to respect international humanitarian law, which provides, in particular, for the protection of hospital infrastructure and imposes, at all times and in all places, clear principles of distinction, necessity, proportionality and precaution “. .
The Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ayman Safadi, denounced the “silence” of the Security Council regarding the Israeli operation.
“This silence hides war crimes, so it cannot be accepted or justified. The Council must act,” Safadi said on the X social network.
Norway also expressed concern about the operations, stating that they go “too far and cannot be accepted.”
“This worsens an already horrible humanitarian situation in Gaza,” said the head of Norwegian diplomacy, Espen Barth Eide.
Israel and Hamas, a movement considered terrorist by the European Union and the United States, have been at war since October 7, when the Islamic extremist group invaded the south of the country from the Gaza Strip and killed 1,200 people.
Since then, Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, has said that more than 11,000 people have been killed in Israeli bombings and ground operations in that territory.
Source: TSF
