Geneva, December 22 (Prensa Latina) The World Health Organization denounced the impossibility of delivering fuel to the Al-Ahly Al-Arabi and Al-Shifa hospitals in northern Gaza, due to the lack of security guarantees.
In a failed attempt, the agency was only able to provide these health care centers with medical supplies for surgery and wound treatment, supplies to assist women during childbirth, and intravenous fluids and medications.
Teams providing aid witnessed the impact of recent attacks on health facilities and the level of destruction.
The representative of the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Peppercorn, confirmed that only nine out of 36 health centers in the Gaza Strip are partially operating, and all of them are located in the south, while none of them provide care or services in the north.
He stressed that the World Health Organization would continue its efforts to supply health facilities in northern Gaza, but warned that “without fuel, staff and other basic needs, medicines will be of no use and all patients will die slowly and painfully.”
For his part, WHO Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Sean Casey, also highlighted the growing and already widespread shortages of food and water.
“We are dealing with hungry people, adults and children, and it is unbearable. Everywhere we go, people ask us for food, even in the hospital, where I passed the emergency room, someone with an open wound bleeding, an open fracture, was asking for food. “If that's not a sign of desperation, I don't know what is,” he said.
So far, more than 20,000 people have been killed in hostilities in Gaza, a figure representing approximately one percent of the Strip's population.
M/CRC
“Award-winning alcohol trailblazer. Hipster-friendly internetaholic. Twitter ninja. Infuriatingly humble beer lover. Pop culture nerd.”