{"id":296186,"date":"2024-05-22T10:50:59","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T14:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=296186"},"modified":"2024-05-24T10:52:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T14:52:27","slug":"who-chief-calls-for-end-to-hospital-siege-22may24","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/who-chief-calls-for-end-to-hospital-siege-22may24\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO chief calls for end to latest hospital siege"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
22 May 2024<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\"\"

WHO delivering essential medical supplies during a UN mission to Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza earlier this year. Photo: \u00a9 WHO<\/p><\/div>

\n
<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

As bombardments by the Israeli military reportedly continued overnight across Gaza, along with ground incursions and heavy fighting,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

the head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO)\u00a0<\/strong>issued an alert<\/strong><\/a><\/em>\u00a0on Tuesday for staff and patients at besieged Al-Awda Hospital in the north of the enclave.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMedical staff inside the hospital reported an attack on 20 May, with\u00a0snipers aiming at the building and an artillery rocket hitting the fifth floor<\/strong>,\u201d Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.<\/p>\n

Some 148 staff and 22 patients and their companions have remained \u201ctrapped inside\u201d the hospital since Sunday, the\u00a0WHO<\/a>\u00a0Director-General added, before issuing an appeal for their protection.<\/p>\n

Evacuation order impact<\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to the WHO, only around one third of Gaza\u2019s 36 hospitals still function, leaving critical health care facilities \u201cinaccessible\u201d to patients and healthcare workers impacted by the violence or evacuation orders.<\/p>\n

In the southern city of Rafah, Israeli military orders telling Gazans to move have affected more than 20 medical points, four hospitals and four primary healthcare centres, the UN health agency noted.<\/p>\n

In northern Gaza, meanwhile, 16 medical points have been impacted as well as five primary healthcare centres and Kamal Adwan Hospital, in addition to Al-Awda Hospital.<\/p>\n

In a social media post on X on Sunday, WHO\u2019s Tedros\u00a0raised the alarm<\/em><\/a>\u00a0about reports of intense hostilities in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital coupled with an influx of injured patients despite the facility\u2019s limited ability to treat them.<\/p>\n

At least 900,000 Gazans uprooted<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In a related development, the UN aid coordination office,\u00a0OCHA<\/a>,<\/em> reported that the ongoing Israeli military operation and evacuation orders have uprooted\u00a0well over 900,000 in the last two weeks \u2013 some four in 10 Gazans<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This includes 812,000 people from Rafah and more than 100,000 others in northern Gaza, with hundreds of thousands experiencing dreadful living conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumanitarian partners working to provide shelter to people in Gaza report that\u00a0there are no tents and very few shelter items\u00a0<\/strong>left for distribution,\u201d OCHA said.<\/p>\n

Camping on roads<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cPeople displaced from Rafah are currently\u00a0seeking shelter<\/strong>\u00a0in Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah\u00a0on any open land available<\/strong>, including access roads and agricultural land as well as in damaged buildings that have not been structurally assessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, more than 75 per cent of the Gaza Strip \u2013 some 285 square kilometres \u2013 is under evacuation orders amid escalating hostilities, the UN agency said. \u201cUnder international humanitarian law, civilians \u2013 whether they move or stay \u2013 must be protected.\u00a0Wherever they are in Gaza, their essential needs, including food, shelter, water and health, must be met.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

No let up in violence<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The escalating fighting has severely disrupted nutrition support services in the north and south, the OCHA update continued, noting that access had been lost to more than 100 food distribution points in Rafah alone.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, humanitarian partners working to provide water, sanitation and hygiene support in Gaza\u00a0said<\/a><\/em>\u00a0that there are shortages of hygiene kits and water containers for households to collect and store water, which are critical for people who are forcibly displaced.<\/p>\n

More generally, the desperate lack of basic services after more than seven months of war have fuelled severe acute malnutrition among Gazans, exacerbating already serious concerns about a \u201cfurther surge\u201d in communicable diseases and dangerous hunger levels, OCHA warned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 May 2024 As bombardments by the Israeli military reportedly continued overnight across Gaza, along with ground incursions and heavy fighting, the head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO)\u00a0issued an alert\u00a0on Tuesday for staff and patients at besieged Al-Awda Hospital in the north of the enclave. \u201cMedical staff inside the hospital reported an attack […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[2169,2529],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2517,1769,1945,2209,2005,2533,6869,1741,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-296186","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-office-for-the-coordination-of-humanitarian-affairs-ocha","document-source-world-health-organization-who","document-subject-access-and-movement","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-expulsions-and-deportations","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-hospitals","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/296186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/296186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296187,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/296186\/revisions\/296187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=296186"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=296186"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=296186"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=296186"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=296186"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=296186"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=296186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}