(Geneva) Gaza’s health system is “on the verge of total collapse” due to incessant Israeli attacks since the start of the war in October 2023, estimates the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in a report released Tuesday.
Posted at 7:49 a.m.
Updated at 2:37 p.m.
“Israel’s series of deadly attacks on hospitals in and near Gaza, and associated fighting, have pushed the health system to the brink of total collapse, with a catastrophic effect on access Palestinians to health and medical care,” it said in a statement accompanying the report.
The latter also judges Israel’s assertions justifying these attacks by the fact that Palestinian armed groups use these buildings to be “vague”.
“So far, the public does not have sufficient information to substantiate these allegations, which remain vague and general and which, in some cases, appear to be contradicted by public information,” it says.
PHOTO DAWOUD ABU ALKAS, ARCHIVES REUTERS
Wounded people evacuated from Kamal Adwan hospital, in the northern Gaza Strip, after Israeli bombardments, December 28, 2024.
Hospitals in Gaza have become “death traps”, underlined the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
As if the incessant bombings and dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the only sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe has in fact become a death trap.
Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
“The protection of hospitals in times of war is paramount and must be respected by all parties, at all times,” he added.
27 hospitals hit
The report, 23 pages long and titled Attacks on hospitals during escalation of hostilities in Gaza, covers the period from October 7, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
During this period, at least 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities took place, it specifies in particular. These strikes caused numerous casualties among doctors, nurses, medical personnel and other civilians and caused significant damage, if not complete destruction, to civilian infrastructure.
On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stressed that the health system in northern Gaza had been “wiped out” by the conflict and that its hospitals were “completely inoperable”.
Since October 6, Israeli operations in Gaza have focused on the north of the Strip, with authorities saying their land and air offensive aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Israel notably launched a major raid on Kamal Adwan hospital on Friday and Saturday. This large hospital, the last still operational in the north of the Palestinian territory devastated by more than a year of war, is now “empty” and “out of service” in the terms of the World Health Organization (WHO).
PHOTO ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
People check the damage outside Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip after an Israeli strike, December 6, 2024.
The Israeli military said Sunday that its forces killed around 20 Palestinian militants and apprehended “240 terrorists” in the raid, calling it one of its “largest operations” in the territory.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, which led to the death of more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
More than 45,500 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation on the Gaza Strip, mainly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
