WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the mission is the sixth mission to northern Gaza that the organization has canceled as a result of not approving requests to visit or providing security guarantees since the previous visit on December 26.
“Intensive bombing, movement restrictions, fuel shortages and communications blackouts make it impossible for the World Health Organization and our partners to reach those in need… We call on Israel to approve requests from the World Health Organization and other partners to provide humanitarian aid,” Ghebreyesus said in a virtual press conference from Geneva.
The World Health Organization said earlier on Wednesday that only 15 hospitals were operating in Gaza, and that they were working partially. She added that the deteriorating conditions also represent fertile ground for the spread of infectious diseases. For example, Richard Pepperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the number of diarrhea cases among children under five was 20 times higher in November 2023 compared to the previous year’s average.
He added that he hopes that the planned WHO mission to northern Gaza will go ahead on Thursday. But he added that approximately 16 or 17 missions were cancelled, out of 21 missions that the United Nations had planned since the beginning of this month.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said restoring Gaza’s public health system even with a ceasefire would be a “tremendous” task.
2024-01-11 01:48:25
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