A World Health Organization (WHO) emergency response coordinator described in a statement at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, January 17, that patients in Gaza hospitals rendered dysfunctional by the war were “awaiting death.”
After spending five weeks in the Palestinian territory, Sean Casey, a WHO emergency coordinator, reported seeing hospital patients daily waiting for treatment “with severe burns or open fractures for hours or days.”
“They often asked me for food or water, which shows the level of desperation,” he added. Sean Casey said he was only able to visit six of the sixteen hospitals operating in Gaza, out of the thirty-six that were in operation before the war.
“A rapid deterioration of the health system”
“What I have personally seen is a rapid deterioration of the health system,” he testified, also noting “the decline in access to humanitarian assistance, particularly in areas north of the belt.” [de Gaza] “. “We tried daily for seven days to deliver fuel and supplies to the north of Gaza City,” the official described. “Every day we were denied these requests”
Hospitals in Gaza are receiving a huge influx of patients but can only count on minimal staff as nurses, like the majority of the population, have been displaced from their homes after fleeing. Mr Casey said he had seen patients in the northern Gaza Strip “waiting to die in a hospital with no fuel, electricity or water”.
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The war, which devastated the Palestinian enclave and displaced 80% of the civilian population, was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which by one count killed 1,140 people, the most civilians killed that day from Agence France-Presse based on official figures.
Around 250 people were taken hostage in the attack and taken to the Gaza Strip, about 100 of whom were released in late November as part of a ceasefire. According to Israel, 132 people are still imprisoned, of whom 27 are believed to have died. On the Palestinian side, the Hamas Ministry of Health regrets 24,448 deaths in the Gaza Strip.