WHO: Gaza's hospitals are 'overcrowded'

The World Health Organization's representative in the occupied Palestinian territories announced on Wednesday that less than half of the WHO's missions to deliver aid to Gaza have been approved, while hospitals are completely overcrowded.

Richard Peeperkorn said, speaking via video from Gaza, that the hospitals are completely overcrowded and they do not have enough supplies.

He explained that employees are forced to perform amputations due to the lack of treatment materials that would enable them to save patients' limbs through surgery in a natural environment.

While he condemned the shrinking humanitarian space in Gaza, he accused Israel of continuing to obstruct delivering humanitarian aid in the Palestinian territories devastated by the war, which broke out following an unprecedented attack launched by the movement on Israeli territory on October 7.

Peeperkorn explained that since November, only 40 percent of the WHO's missions to northern Gaza have been approved, adding that since January, this number has decreased significantly, and the percentage reaches about 45 percent in the south.

Moreover, he added that the rest of the missions were rejected, obstructed, or postponed.

Peeperkorn stressed that "this is ridiculous. Even in case of a ceasefire, there must be humanitarian corridors so that WHO, the United Nations, and their partners can do their work. We must put in place a practical and different system to avoid conflict so that we can do our work."


AFP