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UN rights office warns hospital destruction, staff deaths have pushed Gaza health system to breaking point; UNRWA faces potential ban
Summary
The U.N. rights office and U.N. agencies told the Security Council that attacks on hospitals, heavy health-worker casualties and blocked aid have left Gaza’s health system near collapse, while a pending Israeli Knesset bill to bar UNRWA from operating there could deepen the crisis.
Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, told the Security Council by videoconference that attacks on hospitals across the Gaza Strip have deprived Palestinians not only of health care but also of sanctuary for people with nowhere else to go.
Türk said the destruction and combat in and around hospitals have had a “terrible impact” at a time of massive demand on health services. He cited figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health indicating more than 1,050 medical professionals have been killed in Gaza.
The World Health Organization representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, Rick Pieperkorn, told the council that roughly 7% of Gaza’s population has been killed during 14 months of fighting and that only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain at least partially functional.…
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