The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Press Conferences , Edited News | WHO
WHO Press Conference: Update on health situation in Gaza - 21 December 2023
Injured patients ‘waiting to die’ in northern Gaza as last hospital shuts down: WHO
There are no functioning hospitals in the north of Gaza and injured patients who need surgery and cannot be moved are “waiting to die”, the UN health agency said on Thursday, in a plea for a ceasefire to allow more aid into the shattered enclave.
The latest grave assessment from the World Health Organization (WHO) came after UN teams reached Al Ahli Arab hospital and Al Shifa hospital on Wednesday, amid reports of intensifying ground operations by Israeli Defense Forces and continuing airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, in response to Hamas’s 7 October terror attacks on southern Israel.
“Patients were crying out in pain, but they were also crying out for us to give them water,” said WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator Sean Casey, describing the scene at Al Ahli Arab hospital, where medical staff were struggling to cope with “no food, no fuel, no water”.
“It looks more like a hospice now than a hospital. But a hospice implies a level of care that the doctors and nurses are unable to provide…. It's pretty unbearable to see somebody with casts on multiple limbs, external fixator on multiple limbs, without drinking water and almost no IV fluids available.
“At the moment, it's a place where people are waiting to die unless we are able to move them to a safer location where they can receive care.”
Guterres aid call
Highlighting the need to relieve the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday said that “intense fighting, lack of electricity, limited fuel and disrupted telecommunications” had severely restricted the UN’s efforts to provide life-saving aid to people in the enclave.
“Conditions to allow for large-scale humanitarian operations need to be re-established immediately,” the UN chief insisted in a tweet.
Growing hunger
The high-risk mission to northern Gaza involving the WHO, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) ensured the delivery of seven pallets of urgently needed medicines, intravenous fluids and supplies for surgery and to treat the wounded, along with equipment to support women giving birth.
Important though the delivery of medical supplies to the north is to provide some relief to patients, much more worrying is the growing and already widespread shortage of food and water.
“We are behind. There is not enough food, every single person I speak to everywhere I go in Gaza is hungry,” Mr. Casey said, speaking to journalists in Geneva. “The time is now. We are dealing with starving people now, adults, children, it's unbearable. Everywhere we go, people are asking us for food even in the hospital, I walked around in the emergency department, somebody with an open bleeding wound, an open fracture; they asked for food. If that's not an indicator of the desperation, I don't know what is.”
Crippling shortages
According to the UN health agency, only nine out of 36 health facilities in Gaza are partially functional; all of them are located in the south.
“There are no operating theatres (in the north) anymore due to the lack of fuel, power, medical supplies and health workers, including surgeons and other specialists,” said Dr Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative and now acting UN humanitarian coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, speaking from Jerusalem.
At Al Ahli Arab hospital approximately 10 staff – “all junior doctors and nurses” – have continued to provide basic first aid to some 80 patients now sheltering in a church within the hospital grounds, Dr. Peeperkorn explained. “Some of them are severely injured and have been waiting for surgery for two weeks or have been operated on but are now at risk of post-operation infection due to lack of antibiotics and other drugs. All these patients cannot move and need to be transferred urgently, to have a chance to survive.”
Heavy bombing and clashes
According to the UN aid office OCHA’s latest update on the crisis, “heavy Israeli bombardments from air, land and sea”, continued across Gaza on Wednesday.
The most intense shelling was reported in Beit Lahiya and multiple areas in Gaza city (north), eastern Khan Younis in the south and the eastern and western areas of Rafah city, also in the south.
OCHA also reported “intense ground operations” and continuing clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza, Gaza City, the Middle Area, and Khan Younis, along with the firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups into Israel.
Latest casualty figures from Gaza’s health authorities from Tuesday shared by OCHA indicated that 19,667 Palestinians have killed in Gaza since 7 October, about 70 per cent are believed to be women and children. More than 52,586 people have been injured, according to the same source, which reported that many more were missing, likely buried under the rubble.
The UN update also noted that two Israeli soldiers were reported killed in Gaza between 19 and 20 December. “Since the start of the ground operations, 134 soldiers have been killed in Gaza, and 740 soldiers have been injured, according to the Israeli military,” OCHA said.
New evacuation order
The update also flagged a 20 December immediate evacuation order from the Israeli military covering about 20 per cent of central and south of Khan Younis city. The area was marked in an online map published on social media. Before the 7 October escalation, the area was home to nearly 111,542 people, according to OCHA, which noted that it also included 32 shelters housing about 141,451 internally displaced persons - the vast majority having been previously displaced from the north.
STORY: Gaza healthcare update – WHO
TRT: 3:09”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 21 December 2023 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: UN building with UN flag, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Sean Casey, WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator: “It's pretty unbearable to see people who are already victims of conflicts who are in what should be a safe place where they should be able to access care, where they're sitting, waiting to die unless something dramatically changes that will allow them to survive. And that required safe movement, it requires a huge uplift of fuel, it requires medicine, medical supplies, human resources. They're starving. They're dying of thirst.”
- Cutaway: Medium shot, UN building with UN flag
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Sean Casey, WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator: “Patients were crying out in pain, but they were also crying out for us to give them water. It's pretty unbearable to see somebody with casts on multiple limbs, external fixator on multiple limbs, without drinking water and almost no IV fluids available.”
- Cutaway: Medium shot UN entrance at Place des Nations
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “Over 20,000 people now have been killed in the hostilities in Gaza. This is actually almost one per cent of the entire population. WHO calls again for a humanitarian ceasefire. This is needed now to reinforce and restock remaining health facilities, deliver medical services needed by thousands of injured people and those needing essential care, and above all, stop the bloodshed and death.”
- Cutaway: Wide shot, Ariana Park at UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Sean Casey, WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator: “We went through the courtyard where we stepped over a hole from shelling that had happened just a couple of days before, passed a row of bodies that had been wrapped in white, in plastic sheeting,”
- Cutaway: Wide shot, UN flag with ICRC building in background
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Sean Casey, WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator: “What would be considered unnecessary amputations in the rest of the world where there is capability to save limbs, where there's orthopedic capability, where there is vascular capability, that's not there. There's no surgery happening right now in northern Gaza. And so actually, many of the patients that I saw yesterday will need amputation if and when they're able to access surgical care.”
- Cutaway: Wide shot, UN building
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Sean Casey, WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator: “It's too late. We’re behind. There is not enough food. Every single person I speak to, everywhere I go in Gaza, is hungry. The time is now. We are dealing with starving people now, adults, children. It's unbearable. Everywhere we go, people are asking even in the hospital, I walk around in the emergency department, somebody with an open bleeding wound, with an open fracture, they ask for food.”
- Cutaway: Wide shot, UN flag alley
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , HRC
Volker Türk, the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, made the following remarks during a briefing to a Special Session on Iran at the Human Rights Council.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA , UNOPS , UNIS
Amid the launch of President Trump's Board of Peace and reconstruction talks on Gaza, UN aid agencies insisted on Friday that what Gazans need most is immediate relief from the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe there.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | IFRC , IOM , UNOPS , UNRWA , WHO
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by the representatives and spokespersons the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the United Nations Office for Project Services, the UN International Organization for Migration, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
2
6
1
2
Edited News , Press Conferences , Images | HRC
At UN, war crimes probe pledges to continue to work for all impacted by Hamas-Israel conflict
As President Trump launched the international Board of Peace plan for Gaza on Thursday, top independent rights experts tasked by the UN Human Rights Council with investigating grave abuses linked to the Hamas-Israel war pledged to continue their work seeking justice and accountability for all.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said Tuesday UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk was outraged by the repeated large-scale attacks by the Russian Federation on energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN warns against repeating abuses in South Kordofan that occurred in El Fasher.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , UNICEF
Mozambique floods heighten disease, malnutrition risks – UN agencies
Catastrophic flooding in Mozambique is causing massive disruption to lives and livelihoods across the country, increasing the risk of disease and exposing urban areas to crocodiles, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | OCHA , OHCHR , UNCTAD , UNICEF , UNECE
Rolando Gómez, Chief of Press and External Relations Section, United Nations Information Service (UNIS) at Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the United Nations Trade and Development.
2
1
2
Press Conferences , Edited News | OCHA
Yemen: Children are dying and it’s going to get worse, aid veteran warns
In Yemen, renewed political instability threatens and economic woes linked to the war to complicate the already difficult task of helping vulnerable people suffering from deepening hunger, illness and displacement, the UN's top aid official there said on Monday.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNICEF , IFRC
Ukraine: Families in ‘survival mode’ amid Russian strikes and -18°C cold
Families across Ukraine are in “constant survival mode” amid ongoing waves of Russian missile and drone strikes that have left blocks without power for days at a time, while temperatures plunge to a deadly -18°C (-0.4°F), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | HRC , UNICEF , IFRC , WFP , WHO , UNHCR
Rolando Gómez, Chief of Press and External Relations Section, UN Information Service at Geneva (UNIS), chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by spokespersons and representatives of the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Federation of the Red Cross, the World Food Programme, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Health Organization.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press conference in Geneva, UN Human Rights Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence urges Iranian authorities to end violent repression and calls for accountability.