WHO Warns: Patients of Destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital at Risk of Death without Evacuation

By Staff, Agencies

The head of the World Health Organization [WHO] Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that failure to quickly carry out medical evacuations following the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza could lead to further fatalities.

At a media briefing on Wednesday, Ghebreyesus commented on the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following the “Israeli” army’s two-week raid, saying “the situation looks disastrous.”

“The people who need medical evacuation will increase, and medical evacuation is already slow,” Tedros said, adding that “people will die because they will not get the services either from Shifa or because of slow evacuation, because they cannot be evacuated.”

He also added that he is “appalled” that the al-Shifa hospital has been put out of action and that much of it has been badly damaged or destroyed.

Al-Shifa was the largest hospital and main referral center in the Gaza Strip, with 750 beds, 26 operating rooms, 32 intensive care rooms, a dialysis department and a central laboratory.

Tedros reiterated his call for hospitals in Gaza to be “respected and protected” and “not be used as battlefields.”

The WHO chief also said that only 10 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still able to function even partially and that WHO will continue to support those hospitals to deliver services as best they can.

He added that the UN agency is seeking to visit the location where Al-Shifa stood in order to engage with the staff and assess the extent of salvageable resources.

According to WHO, since the “Israeli” assault on Gaza on October 7, 906 attacks on health care in Gaza, the West Bank, the occupied territories and Lebanon have been verified, resulting in 736 deaths and 1,014 injuries.

In the same address, the WHO chief praised the seven aid workers who were killed in an “Israeli” airstrike in central Gaza on Monday, for their service in Gaza and for putting themselves in harm’s way to help others.

“Delays and denials of humanitarian missions not only prevent us from reaching those in need, but also impact other operations and deliveries by diverting scarce resources,” he said.

Tedros added that the “horrific” killing of the aid workers highlights “the extreme danger” under which humanitarians operate in Gaza.