Palestinians dying daily in overwhelmed hospitals: UN

The health system in Gaza is “collapsing” and Palestinians are dying daily in the enclave’s overwhelmed remaining hospitals, a United Nations agency official said Wednesday, as Israel continues its military offensive in the region against militant group Hamas.

About 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain “minimally or partially functioning” and are crowded with thousands of patients and displaced residents trying to escape the fighting, the U.N. said.

Sean Casey, a health emergency officer with the World Health Organization (WHO), spoke with journalists in New York, renewing calls for a cease-fire after spending more than five weeks in the war-torn territory.

“I saw patients in hospitals every day with severe burns, with open fractures, waiting hours or days for care, and they would often ask me for food or water,” he said. “It demonstrates the level of desperation that we see.”

Casey emphasized the need for greater access for medical staff and resources, adding that he and aid convoys tried for an entire week to deliver fuel and supplies to Gaza City in the north but were denied each time.

He visited six hospitals in the coastal enclave, including al-Shifa in Gaza City, Gaza’s largest hospital, with more than 700 beds.

The hospital — with tens of thousands of displaced individuals living in parts of its corridor, stairs and operating theaters — “is now an emergency room that’s full of severely injured patients and five or six doctors and nurses,” Casey said.

Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s population, equal to about 1.9 million individuals, have been forced out of their homes since the violence began shortly after Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel, according to the U.N.

The initial attack, which sparked the war, left an estimated 1,200 people dead, while an estimated 240 people were taken hostage. Israel quickly launched a counteroffensive against the militant group, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza — by land and air — has killed more than 24,400 people and wounded another 60,000, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday, per The Associated Press.

At al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, Casey said he witnessed patients “lying on church pews, basically waiting to die, in a hospital that had no fuel, no power, no water; very, very little in the way of medical supplies and only a handful of staff remaining to take care of them.”  

He added that the WHO is trying to mobilize more surgeons, doctors and nurses in the region and established field hospitals to “meet the significantly increased burden of case.”