UNITED NATIONS, Nov 10 (Portal) – A child is killed on average every 10 minutes in the Gaza Strip, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the United Nations Security Council on Friday, warning: “Nowhere and no one is safe.”
He said that half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health centers were not functioning and that those that were operating were far exceeding their capacity, describing the health system as “devastated.”
“Hospital corridors full of injured, sick, dying people. Morgues overcrowded. Surgery without anesthesia. Tens of thousands of displaced people are seeking refuge in hospitals,” Tedros told the 15-member council.
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, after an Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel in which the militants reportedly killed around 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage. Israel has attacked Gaza – an enclave of 2.3 million people – from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground invasion.
“On average, a child is killed every ten minutes in Gaza,” Tedros said.
Since October 7, the WHO has confirmed more than 250 attacks on health care in Gaza and the West Bank, while there have been 25 attacks on health care in Israel, Tedros said. Israel claims that Hamas is hiding weapons in tunnels under hospitals, but Hamas denies the allegation.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the Security Council that Israel had set up a task force to set up hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip. On October 12, Israel ordered about 1.1 million people in the Gaza Strip to move south ahead of its ground invasion.
A child looks at a house hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in central Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in central Israel, November 3, 2023. Portal/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo Acquire LICENSE RIGHTS
“Israel is in advanced discussions with the United Arab Emirates, the ICRC and other European countries on the establishment of field hospital ships and floating hospital ships,” Erdan said. “Israel facilitated Jordanian airdrops of medical aid to hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip.”
“Unfortunately, Israel does far more for the well-being of the Gaza people than the WHO or any other UN body,” he said.
The United States is working to provide fuel to hospitals in Gaza, US Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood said, emphasizing that civilian and humanitarian facilities must be respected and protected under international law.
Wood said Hamas used civilians as human shields.
“These cowardly tactics do not diminish Israel’s responsibility to distinguish between civilians and terrorists in the fight against Hamas,” he said. “The risk of harm to civilians at sites used by Hamas for military purposes must be taken into account when planning an operation.”
The Security Council observed a minute’s silence at the start of the meeting to remember the civilians killed in Israel and Gaza, as well as 101 people working for the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA).
Tedros recalled his childhood during the war in Ethiopia and said he understands what the children in Gaza are going through.
“The sound of shots and shells whistling through the air, the smell of smoke after they hit, tracer bullets in the night sky, the fear, the pain, the loss – these things have stayed with me my whole life,” he said.
Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien
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