WHO Calls to Protect Gaza Hospitals After Nasser Strike

The World Health Organization has renewed its call for the protection of medical facilities in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike struck Nasser Hospital, one of the territory's largest functioning medical centres located in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued the appeal following the strike, warning that health infrastructure across Gaza is being systematically destroyed at a scale the global health body says is unprecedented.

According to figures cited by Tedros, there have been 1,056 documented attacks on health services in Gaza since the conflict escalated in October 2023. Those attacks have killed at least 1,010 people and injured a further 1,725. The WHO says the figures include strikes on hospitals, ambulances, medical staff and health supply routes.

Nasser Hospital has been a focal point of the conflict on multiple occasions. It is one of the few facilities that has continued to operate under extreme pressure, treating mass casualty events while facing shortages of fuel, medicine and medical staff. Any damage to the site directly reduces the capacity to treat the wounded in a region where health services were already stretched far beyond their limits before the current crisis.

The WHO has consistently called on all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on medical facilities and personnel. The organisation has also urged the international community to press for unhindered access for humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, into Gaza.

The appeal comes amid continued international concern over the humanitarian situation in the territory. United Nations agencies have repeatedly warned that the combination of military operations, displacement and blockades has created conditions that threaten the survival of the civilian population.

The WHO has not attributed specific blame for all recorded incidents in its tally, but has called for independent investigations into each attack on health infrastructure. The organisation says that without functioning hospitals and clinics, preventable deaths from injury, disease and malnutrition will continue to rise.

Tedros has previously described the destruction of Gaza's health system as a catastrophe that will have consequences far beyond the duration of the current conflict, noting that rebuilding medical capacity in a war zone takes years even after fighting stops.

Source: Le Defi Media