A joint United Nations (UN) humanitarian assessment team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) described Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital as a “death zone” when it entered to verify Israel’s claims that the hospital was being used as a base would militant group Hamas.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced last week that its forces conducted an operation at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza. Israel released a video apparently showing weapons and military capabilities at the hospital, claiming this was evidence that Hamas was operating at the hospital.
The WHO said it sent a joint team with the United Nations to the hospital on Saturday to “assess the situation on the ground, conduct a rapid situational analysis, assess medical priorities and determine logistical options for further missions.” The team, who spent an hour at the hospital, described the hospital as a “death zone” and the situation as “desperate”.
The UN-WHO team said they saw a mass grave at the hospital where more than 80 people were buried.
“The lack of clean water, fuel, medicine, food and other essential supplies over the past six weeks has resulted in Al-Shifa Hospital – once the largest, most modern and best-equipped referral hospital in Gaza – failing to function as a medical facility Facility has practically ceased. ” The WHO stated this in a press release. “The team found that the security situation made it impossible for staff to carry out effective waste disposal in the hospital.”
The WHO said there are 24 health workers and 291 patients in the hospital, including 32 babies in critical condition, two people in intensive care without ventilators and 22 dialysis patients whose treatment has been “seriously compromised.” It stated that the hospital was no longer operational and that there had been a number of patient deaths in the last two to three days.
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