{"id":290662,"date":"2023-11-14T14:19:03","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T19:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=290662"},"modified":"2023-11-14T14:19:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T19:19:58","slug":"besieged-gaza-hospital-horror-continues-as-rainfall-prompts-new-health-scare-un-news-item","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/besieged-gaza-hospital-horror-continues-as-rainfall-prompts-new-health-scare-un-news-item\/","title":{"rendered":"Besieged Gaza hospital horror continues as rainfall prompts new health scare – UN News Item"},"content":{"rendered":"
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14 November 2023<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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UN health agency\u00a0<\/span>WHO<\/span><\/a>\u00a0hailed on Tuesday the \u201cheroic efforts\u201d of staff at Gaza City\u2019s besieged Al-Shifa hospital and expressed concern for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the enclave where heavy rainfall has caused flooding and aggravated the already dire health crisis.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cRain will just add further to the suffering\u201d of people in the Strip,\u00a0WHO<\/a>\u00a0spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva, at a time when disruptions in sewage pumping and water shortages have caused a spike\u00a0in waterborne diseases and bacterial infections.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization warned last week that since mid-October, over 33,500 cases of diarrhoea have been reported, mostly among children under five, some 16 times the monthly average.<\/p>\n

Facilities run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees,\u00a0UNRWA<\/a>, where over 580,000 displaced people in southern Gaza had sought shelter due to Israel\u2019s offensive in retaliation for Hamas\u2019 deadly 7 October attacks, are more than nine times over capacity and the overcrowding is posing further health risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are begging for a ceasefire to happen now,\u201d Dr. Harris insisted.<\/p>\n

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\"Heavy<\/div>\n
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\u00a9 WHO<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Heavy rain in the Gaza Strip could lead to an increase in diseases.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Hostages\u2019 families in Geneva<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Meanwhile in Geneva, the families of some of the 238 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since 7 October were due to continue their advocacy for the release of their loved ones on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A meeting was announced between hostages\u2019 families and Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a UN humanitarian partner organisation.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the ICRC said that Ms. Spoljaric would also meet with the Israeli authorities and that the organisation has been \u201cpersistently advocating on behalf of the hostages held in Gaza, including directly with Hamas and with actors who may have influence on the parties\u201d.<\/p>\n

Health workers \u2018doing whatever they can\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

WHO\u2019s Dr. Harris described in detail the dire situation at Al-Shifa hospital, which is a focus of operations by the Israeli Defense Forces which claim that Hamas had established a command centre under the hospital \u2013 an allegation denied by medical staff.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the \u201cheroic\u201d health workers, Dr. Harris said that they are \u201cdoing whatever they can to keep going\u201d while the facility has been without power since 11 November and there was not enough food and clean water. Some 700 patients were still present at the site and more than 400 health staff, in addition to around 3,000 displaced persons who had sought refuge there. Dr. Harris said that 28 patient deaths have been reported in the last 48 hours.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, news reports on Tuesday morning indicated that the Israeli military offered to provide incubators to Al-Shifa hospital, where 36 premature babies require constant care. As many as six premature babies had reportedly died over the past three days as their incubators were unable to function owing to the lack of electricity.<\/p>\n

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Evacuation \u2018very difficult\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Asked about the possibility of evacuating patients, Dr. Harris explained that all of those remaining at Al-Shifa required critical support to stay alive. Moving them \u201cwould be a very difficult thing to ask in the best circumstances\u201d, Dr. Harris said, let alone amid bombing, armed clashes and a lack of fuel for ambulances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way would be to stop the hostilities right now and focus on saving lives, not taking lives,\u201d she insisted.<\/p>\n

Record number of attacks on healthcare<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Some 135 attacks on health facilities have been documented in Gaza over the course of the past month, and WHO\u2019s Dr. Harris said that this was the highest number recorded in such a short amount of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope this is the worst we ever see,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The WHO spokesperson pointed to an \u201cincreasing trend\u201d of attacks on health care, also seen in other ongoing conflicts in Sudan and in Ukraine. \u201cIt seems that somehow the understanding that a hospital must a safe haven, a place where people come to be treated when they are in need, has been forgotten,\u201d she told journalists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 November 2023 UN health agency\u00a0WHO\u00a0hailed on Tuesday the \u201cheroic efforts\u201d of staff at Gaza City\u2019s besieged Al-Shifa hospital and expressed concern for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the enclave where heavy rainfall has caused flooding and aggravated the already dire health crisis. \u201cRain will just add further to the suffering\u201d of people […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2477],"document-source":[6284,6169,1817,2529],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1829,2033,2005,2533,6848,1741,5200],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-290662","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-news-item","document-source-red-cross-red-crescent-societies","document-source-united-nations-department-of-global-communications","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-source-world-health-organization-who","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-casualties","document-subject-children","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-hostages","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-humanitarian-relief","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/290662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/290662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290666,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/290662\/revisions\/290666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=290662"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=290662"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=290662"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=290662"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=290662"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=290662"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=290662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}