GENEVA, April 7 — The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday said the massive destruction inflicted on Gaza’s largest hospital, reduced to “an empty shell” with human graves following the latest Israeli siege.
Palestinian news agency (Wafa) reported WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on the X platform that a team of WHO and partners had managed to tour al-Shifa to assess the situation in the hospital days after the Israeli occupation forces ended a two-week siege and attacks on the facility which caused massive destruction in it and led to scores of deaths among patients and medical staff.
“@WHO and partners managed to reach Al-Shifa – once the backbone of the health system in #Gaza, which is now an empty shell with human graves after the latest siege. The team witnessed at least five dead bodies during the mission,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Most of the buildings in the hospital complex are extensively destroyed, and the majority of assets damaged or reduced to ashes. Even restoring minimal functionality in the short term seems implausible,” he added.
He stressed the need for conducting “an in-depth assessment by a team of engineers to determine if the remaining buildings are safe for future use.”
A WHO-led mission finally accessed the hospital on Friday, after multiple failed attempts since March 25.
He said that the recent efforts exerted by WHO and other partners to revive basic services at al-Shifa Hospital “are now lost, and people are once again deprived of access to lifesaving health care services.”
According to the WHO, of Gaza’s 36 main hospitals, only 10 remain even partially functional.
Tedros said urgent action was needed in Gaza as “famine looms, disease outbreaks spread and trauma injuries increase” among the trapped Palestinian population.
He called for the “protection of remaining health facilities in Gaza, protection of health and humanitarian workers and the ]opening of[ additional land crossings to allow access into and across north Gaza”.
He also called for a “functional deconfliction mechanism, unimpeded access of humanitarian aid into and across the Gaza Strip, and a ceasefire.”
— Bernama-Wafa
