One of the few remaining medical facilities in Gaza is on its knees with just five doctors remaining, warned the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday night, pleading for the hospital to be spared from the fighting which has engulfed the area.
A WHO-mission to Al-Aqsa Hospital earlier that day found that most medical staff had fled due to dangerous conditions and an evacuation order, Tedros said.
The WHO chief said that the number of wounded and dead being taken to the hospital has “increased markedly” in the past days, with more than 120 trauma cases and dozens of dead arriving daily “due to increased shelling, gunshot wounds, crush injuries from collapsed buildings, and other war-related trauma” in connection with the ground assault being carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The previous night, there was just one doctor in the emergency department, said Sean Casey, the WHO’s emergency medical teams coordinator, speaking inside the hospital where a child was being treated on a blood-stained floor behind him. Tedros attached the video to his post on X.
“Three months into this conflict, it is inconceivable that this most essential need — the protection of health care — is not assured,” Tedros said.
In November, Gaza’s largest hospital Al-Shifa was raided by Israeli forces which claimed that the Hamas militant group tried to conceal its operations within the facility — something that Hamas denied. Tedros said at the time that the military incursion into the hospital was “totally unacceptable.”
Two medical aid organizations — Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s Emergency Medical Team (EMT) — have also announced that they are withdrawing from Gaza because the situation on the ground has become too dangerous.
In a joint statement, the aid organizations said that Al-Aqsa was the the last functioning hospital in Gaza’s Middle Area. They said that the IDF had dropped leaflets that designated the areas surrounding the hospital as a “red zone,” and that in order to protect their staff, MAP and IRC had pulled out of Al-Aqsa.
Medical staff haven’t been spared from the fighting. Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which on January 6 also withdrew from Al-Aqsa Hospital, has reported fatalities in connection with strikes on medical facilities by Israeli forces.
The IDF launched a ground assault of Gaza following Hamas’ violent attack in Israel in October which killed more than 1,200 people and led to the taking of nearly 250 hostages. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health estimates that more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting.
On top of casualties and disease among displaced civilians, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a report to Security Council members Friday evening that “widespread famine” looms over the enclave.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
