Denials of access, delays, and impediments continue in Gaza: WHO

“Between mid-October and the end of March, over half of all WHO missions have been denied, delayed, impeded or postponed,” Peeperkorn told a UN press conference in Geneva.
He said that, in Gaza, with a population of over 2 million, only 11 hospitals are partially functional – five in the north and six in the south – and 25 are not functional at all.
On 10 April, the WHO and its partners visited Nasser Medical Complex, one of the biggest in Gaza, along with Al Aqsa Hospital, in the middle of the Strip, and Al-Khair.
“All three hospitals are completely non-functional due to destruction from hostilities and attacks,” said Peeperkorn. “These facilities have no oxygen supply, water, electricity or sewage system.”
“The destruction in Khan Yunis (in southern Gaza) is disproportionate to anything one can imagine,” he said. “No building or road is intact; there is only rubble and dirt. The WHO warehouse in Khan Yunis is severely destroyed due to hostilities in its vicinity.”
The UN humanitarian coordinator in Gaza, Jamie McGoldrick, also highlighted the dire hospital situation.
“As you know, only 10 out of the 35 hospitals are working, and barely two-thirds of the primary health care centres are no longer working, either. So we face a real dramatic situation ahead of us,” he told a separate press conference.
“And if there was to be a Rafah incursion, I know the figures mentioned evacuating some 800,000 from Rafah, but there is no space,” he added, referring to a long-threatened Israeli offensive into Rafah, southern Gaza, where some 1.5 million Gazans were driven to take refuge.
During the conflict since last 7 October, Israel has multiple times attacked at or near hospitals as well as areas where aid distribution is taking place, though under the rules of war such sites should be off limits.
Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip since a 7 October cross-border attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which killed some 1,200 people.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
Since the offensive began, more than 33,600 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The war has pushed 85 per cent of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while much of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Israel also stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has urged it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.