GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) has strongly condemned Israel’s repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza. It said the forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe there.
“Patients undergoing hemodialysis, newborns in incubators, women with complications of pregnancy, and others are all facing imminent deterioration of their condition or death if they are forced to move and are cut off from life-saving medical attention while being evacuated,” WHO warned in a statement last night.
Health facilities in northern Gaza continue to receive an influx of injured patients and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. Some patients are being treated in corridors and outdoors in surrounding streets due to a lack of hospital beds.
WHO stressed that “forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at
maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number of patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.”
“Hospital directors and health workers are now facing an agonizing choice: abandon critically ill patients amid a bombing campaign, put their own lives at risk while remaining on site to treat patients, or endanger their patients’ lives while attempting to transport them to facilities that have no capacity to receive them,” the statement said.
Additionally, tens of thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza are seeking refuge in open spaces in or around hospitals, treating them as havens from Israeli bombardment as well as to protect the facilities from potential attacks. “Their lives, too, are at risk when health facilities are bombed,” WHO warned.
WHO said there are verified reports of deaths of healthcare workers and destruction of health facilities, “which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care and is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law.
WHO called for Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, and called for the protection of health facilities, health workers, patients, and civilians.
WHO also reiterated its calls for the immediate and safe delivery of medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and other humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where life-saving assistance.
Source: Palestine news and Information Agency – WAFA