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A doctor, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), has just returned from Palestinian territory in the middle of the conflict between Hamas and Israel. He testified on Franceinfo on Thursday.
Published on December 21, 2023 5:59 p.m
Reading time: 1 min
Children sheltering near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes, southern Gaza Strip, in November 2023. (MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)
The World Health Organization (WHO) is trying all means possible to restore supplies to the hospitals in the Gaza Strip or what is left of them. Only nine hospitals of the 36 facilities in the enclave are still operational. In the north, where the situation is particularly dramatic, none of them are functional. Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli hospitals no longer even have enough to treat the dozens of injured people who have sought refuge in their premises. Some patients have been waiting weeks for surgery.
But due to a lack of electricity, medication and now staff, the few doctors who are still on site have to resort to extreme strategies to save lives. This explains Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, a WHO representative who has just returned from Gaza. “When I visited Al Ahli last week, there were two surgeons there, including an orthopedist. They explained to me that they had to do amputations, but they would never have to do them if there was still a vascular surgeon there.” “You see amputees everywhere in Gaza. Men, women, children… Lots of children,” he reports.
“Children with amputations that shouldn’t have been… I think that says it all.”
Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in Gaza
at franceinfo
The conflict has other, less visible consequences for the health of Gaza's population. Before the war, between 50 and 100 Palestinians went to Israel every day for treatment, very often for cancer. All of this no longer exists. The WHO is calling for these people to be urgently evacuated to Egypt or other countries.
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