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30-11-2023
UNITED NATIONS: Untreated diseases could eventually kill more people in Gaza than bombings if the health system is not restored, the World Health Organization says.
Diarrhea and respiratory infections are widespread among children in overcrowded UN facilities where almost 1.1 million people are sheltering.
Patients with chronic illnesses like cancer are also receiving no treatment.
The warning comes as a truce between Israel and Hamas entered a fifth day, after a 48-hour extension was agreed.
The deal mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States should see an additional 20 Israeli women and children held hostage in Gaza being released in exchange for 60 Palestinian women and teenagers in Israeli prisons.
On Monday, 11 hostages and 33 prisoners were freed on the fourth and final day of the initial agreement, bringing the totals to 50 hostages and 150 prisoners released.
Nineteen foreign nationals, one of whom has Israeli citizenship, have also been handed over by Hamas under separate agreements.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza and imposed a siege in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas gunmen on 7 October, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and about 240 others taken hostage.
Gaza’s Hamas-run government says more than 14,800 people have been killed in the territory since the war began.
The UN estimates that more than 1.8 million people in Gaza have fled their homes over the past seven weeks. About 60% of them are sheltering in 156 facilities belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.
WHO spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris told a news conference in Geneva that an assessment of those shelters had found outbreaks of infectious diseases, with cases of diarrhea among children aged five and older more than 100 times normal levels by early November.
No treatment is available for them, she said, without which infants in particular can deteriorate and die very quickly.
According to the UN, only five hospitals are partially operational in the north of Gaza, the area that has been the focus of the Israeli ground offensive.
Eight of the 11 hospitals are functional in the south, where the Israeli military has ordered civilians to flee. Only one of those hospitals has the capacity to treat critical trauma cases or perform complex surgery.
“Eventually, we will see more people dying from disease than we are even seeing from the bombardment if we are not able to put back together) this health system,” Dr Harris warned.
Addressing journalists via video link from Gaza, UNICEF spokesman James Elder reported seeing hospitals full of children with horrendous war wounds.
He described seeing one child missing part of his leg lying untreated on a hospital floor for several hours because of a lack of medical staff. Other injured children were lying in car parks and gardens outside, he said. (Int’l News Desk)
