An emergency aid coordinator from the World Health Organization (WHO) described, Wednesday, January 17, patients “waiting for death” in Gaza hospitals, rendered inoperable by the war, in a statement at UN headquarters in New York.
After spending five weeks in the Palestinian territory, Sean Casey, a WHO emergency coordinator, said he saw hospital patients every day. “suffering from severe burns or open fractures waiting for hours or days” to be cared for.
“Often they asked me for food or water, this illustrates the level of desperation”he added. Sean Casey said he was only able to visit six of Gaza’s 16 operating hospitalsout of the thirty-six which operated before the war.
“A rapid deterioration of the health system”
“What I have seen personally is a rapid deterioration of the health system”he testified, also noting “the declining level of access for humanitarian aid, particularly in areas north of the strip [de Gaza] ». “We attempted daily for seven days to deliver fuel and supplies to the north of Gaza City”described the manager. “Every day we were refused these requests”
Hospitals in Gaza are receiving a huge flow of patients while only being able to count on minimal staff, with caregivers having been displaced after fleeing their homes, like the majority of the population. Mr. Casey said he saw patients in the northern Gaza Strip “waiting to die in a hospital without fuel, electricity or water”.
The war, which devastated the Palestinian enclave and displaced 80% of the civilian population, was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, in southern Israel which left 1,140 dead, in majority of civilians killed that day, according to a count by Agence France-Presse based on official figures.
Some 250 people were taken hostage and taken to the Gaza Strip during the attack, around 100 of whom were released during a truce at the end of November. According to Israel, 132 remain detained, of whom 27 are believed to have died. On the Palestinian side, the Hamas health ministry deplores 24,448 deaths in the Gaza Strip.