UNRWA has facilitated the delivery of WHOs much needed emergency medical supplies and medicines to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, north of the Gaza Strip, despite huge risks to staff and health partners due to relentless bombardments.
UNRWA and the WHO said in a joint statement issued Thursday that this is only the second delivery of lifesaving supplies to the hospital since the escalation of hostilities and the total siege of Gaza began. On Oct. 24, WHO delivered medical supplies to the hospital amid high insecurity.
UNRWA explained that the quantities delivered are far from sufficient to respond to the immense needs in the Gaza Strip, indicating that the medical conditions at Al-Shifa - the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip and one of the oldest Palestinian health institutions - are disastrous.
The joint statement pointed out that medical facilities are running out of supplies and fuel. So far, no fuel has been allowed into the Gaza Strip, including to Al-Shifa hospital for over one month now.
UNRWA and WHO renew their urgent call for the delivery of fuel to humanitarian agencies in the Gaza Strip. Without fuel, hospitals and other essential facilities like desalination plants and bakeries cannot operate.
They called for the protection of all medical facilities, personnel, patients, and the wounded, for the sustained flow of humanitarian supplies and fuel at scale, and for safe and unimpeded access to deliver those supplies to health facilities wherever they are across the Gaza Strip, they also called for the medical evacuation of critically injured and sick patients.
The Israeli occupation has launched an unprecedent brutal aggression against Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 with violent air, seas and land bombardments of residential areas, hospitals, mosques and school, leaving thousands of martyrs and wounded from defenseless civilians, mostly children, women and elderly, while hundreds others were still under the rubbles, amidst stifling siege on the Strip that prevents access of fuel and vital assistance. (QNA)
