WHO: Medics, patients flee Gaza's remaining hospitals as fighting intensifies

Officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern on Tuesday about the possible collapse of hospitals in the south and central Gaza Strip as many medical staff and patients flee to save their lives.

Approximately one-third of Gaza's hospitals are operational, and some are only functioning partially due to continuous Israeli airstrikes on the Strip for months as part of a military campaign in response to an attack by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on southern Israel on October 7th.

The ongoing fighting in central and southern Gaza increases the pressure on burdened hospitals that are still open.

In a video link press conference in Geneva, Sean Casey, the WHO Emergency Medical Teams Coordinator in Gaza, said, "What we see around Al-Aqsa Hospital, and the intensification of hostilities very close to the European Gaza Hospital and Nasser Hospital, raises real concerns."

He added, "We cannot afford to lose these health facilities. They must be protected, for sure. They are the last line of secondary and tertiary healthcare in Gaza from north to south, and hospitals are falling one after another."

Casey mentioned that patients are risking their lives to reach hospitals in Khan Younis south of the Strip on Tuesday due to the ongoing conflict.

During his Sunday visit to Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, Casey found that 70 percent of its staff had resigned. He stated that hundreds of patients in good condition and could escape did the same on the same night.

He added that many workers at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis have also joined hundreds of thousands of residents of Gaza crowded into shelters in the southernmost part of the Strip. He stated that there is only one doctor for more than 100 burn victims there.

Casey continued, "We still see the healthcare system suffering, and healthcare workers cannot go to their workplaces to care for patients because they fear for their lives... Patients and their families fear going to hospitals because they might die on the way."

He added, "We are witnessing the collapse of the healthcare system at an extremely rapid pace."

Rik Peeperkorn, the representative of the WHO in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, stated in the same press conference that delivering medical aid inside Gaza has become difficult for the organization.

He added, "We are witnessing a complex and shrinking humanitarian space due to the extension of hostilities to the south and the difficulty of operating within it."

Reuters