“Since reports this morning of the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, we have lost contact with the staff there,” WHO leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X.
“This development is really worrying because of the number of patients served and the number of people sheltering there,” he added.
Northern Gaza is enduring an intense military campaign with thousands of civilians believed to have been cut off from humanitarian aid and protection, amid food and other life-sustaining essentials. increasingly depleted.
Mr. Tedros said Kamal Adwan Hospital “was overloaded with nearly 200 patients – a series of terrible injuries that continued to occur,” and hundreds of displaced people were also seeking shelter there.
Dr Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, described the reports as “very worrying”.
Medical support mission
The raid came a day after WHO and partners gained access to Kamal Adwan Hospital amid ongoing hostilities in the north.
Dr. Peeperkorn was carrying out a “complex mission” lasting more than 20 hours, he said, speaking from Deir Al-Balah to journalists attending the United Nations’ biweekly humanitarian briefing in Geneva. .
The team transferred 23 patients and 26 caregivers south to Al-Shifa Hospital, located in Gaza City.
They also provided 10,000 liters of fuel, 180 units of blood, trauma surgery and alcohol to pay for 1,600 interventions for Kamal Adwan.
Al-Shifa also received laboratory supplies, anesthetics, drugs and antibiotics which were also delivered to Al-Shifa Hospital to meet the health needs of 6,000 people.
Staff ‘completely overwhelmed’
Dr. Peeperkorn provided an eyewitness account of what he saw.
At a checkpoint near Kamal Adwan, there were “thousands of women and children leaving the area, walking, limping, carrying few belongings towards Salah al-Din and in fact towards Gaza City” , he said.
“We saw very few men or teenagers,” he continued. “We saw men being screened.”
At Kamal Adwan, the team “witnessed chaos and chaos,” he said, noting that during his last visit on October 21 and 22, 75 to 100 patients had present at the facility.
“Now there are probably over 200 patients. The emergency room was overwhelmed, and we saw a lot of patients being brought in… patients with terrible injuries.”
Meanwhile, staff were “completely overwhelmed” and “also ill-equipped to deal with it.”
Dr. Peeperkorn noted Kamal Adwan is one of two hospitals in the north identified by the WHO as “minimally functional.” He understood that the remaining facility, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, was very isolated and barely functional.
