“All night, there was heavy bombing around Kamal Adwan Hospital,” said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, United Nations Health Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Speaking from the area to journalists in Geneva via video, he said an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank was seen outside the hospital at around 4 a.m. Friday, while people People are required to move out of the medical center.
“There was no official evacuation order,” he asserted, but instead there were rumors and panic.
“People began climbing the walls to escape, and this panic attracted IDF fire. There were reports of deaths and arrests.”
The emergency team was hindered
The veteran UN humanitarian worker explained that very few relief and emergency medical teams have reached Kamal Adwan Hospital since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza’s far north at the beginning of the month 10. This left the facility without vital reserves, including fuel.
After seven weeks of unsuccessful efforts and denied access requests, the international Emergency Medical Team (EMT) was finally given basic supplies. deployed to Kamal Adwan “less than a week ago,” only to be asked to leave seven days laterDr. Peeperkorn explains.
The team included two surgeons, two emergency nurses, a gynecologist and a logistics officer. “They were still there and within a week they were gone again. For me, this is not only difficult to understand but also extremely, extremely sad,” the senior said. WHO doctor, who added that there were no surgeons left at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Tasks are denied or hindered
As of October 2023, 58% of 273 WHO-led missions in Gaza have been rejected, canceled or obstructed.
This has added to the urgent but extremely difficult task of evacuating patients requiring specialist medical support outside the area.
Since October 7, 2023 and the start of the war due to Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel, 5,325 patients have been evacuated from Gaza.
Evacuation crisis
Nearly 5,000 people passed through the Rafah border crossing before it was closed on May 7 last year, including 4,000 children. The United Nations health agency estimates at least 12,000 patients across Gaza still need medical evacuation to survive..
According to Palestinian health authorities, at least 44,612 Palestinians have been killed and 105,834 injured since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. The majority of those killed were women and children.
Gaza’s children pay a terrible price
Children in Gaza continued to die this week while sheltering in tents or desperately waiting in line to buy bread. speak UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Edouard Beigbeder on Friday.
An airstrike in Camp Nuseirat, central Gaza, reportedly killed four children near a local food distribution point on Wednesday.
“They were among the people waiting in line to eat until bombs started falling from the sky. Two boys and a girl under 10 years old and a boy 16 years old,” he said, adding that an airstrike is believed to have hit 40 tents that evening in Al Mawasi, a “ humanitarian zone” was unilaterally designated, causing a massive explosion and fire. At least 22 people were killed, including eight children, and dozens more were injured.
Last week, two children and a woman were reportedly crushed to death while queuing outside a bakery in central Gaza. “Hungry children are swept away by despair,” he continued.
“The overall humanitarian response in Gaza is moving towards total collapse. The lives of virtually every child are at risk or shattered by unimaginable trauma, loss and deprivation,” said a senior UNICEF official.
“Their safety and access to essential humanitarian aid is not facilitated as clearly required by international law…The normalization of such ongoing horror needs to translate into action to stop it. Enough is enough.”
