The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in the Gaza Strip as extremely disastrous. “On average, a child is killed every ten minutes in Gaza,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN Security Council.
“Nowhere is safe and no one is safe,” he said, as more and more people flee into smaller and smaller spaces. Last month there were more than 250 attacks on hospitals in the Gaza Strip and over 25 in Israel. Tedros called for greater access for humanitarian aid.
Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, Israel has allowed only limited aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip. Fuel for the generators of hospitals, among others, has not yet been allowed to be imported.
The head of the Palestinian Red Cross, Marwan Dschilani, spoke to the most powerful UN body about the fact that the lack of fuel in the Gaza Strip due to the blockade by Israel could cost many more lives: “At the moment there is a very great danger that we will send all patients to the Intensive care units and the children in the incubators are losing.” The humanitarian aid that reached Gaza last month was equivalent to what would otherwise have flowed into the area in two days.
The Security Council has so far been unable to agree on a common stance on the Gaza war, partly because of vetoes from the USA, China and Russia. A new draft from all ten non-permanent members of the Council is being negotiated behind the scenes, but there has been no breakthrough so far.
Seriously ill children were able to leave the Gaza Strip
Meanwhile, it was announced that 12 minors suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases have been removed from the Gaza Strip, according to the WHO.
They were taken with their carers to Egypt and Jordan to continue their medical treatment there, the WHO said in Geneva.
The operation was coordinated among Palestinian and Israeli authorities with the help of the United States, Egypt, Jordan and St. Jude Children’s Hospital of Memphis in the United States.
“I pray that this initiative inspires all sides to put health and peace first,” Ghebreyesus said. One of the two special clinics for cancer patients had to close due to a lack of material and the security situation, the other is only functioning to a limited extent. Care for cancer patients has been reduced to a minimum. According to the WHO, all partners are working to get more seriously ill people out of the Gaza Strip.
