GENEVA

A Canadian doctor on Friday denounced Israel's humanitarian aid distribution system in the besieged Gaza, calling it a "colonial, imperial tool" set up to prolong Palestinian suffering.

Speaking at the Association of Accredited Correspondents at the United Nations media briefing in Geneva, Yipeng Ge, who visited Gaza one and a half years ago, issued a scathing critique of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) operating under Israeli oversight.

Ge described the aid zones of GHF as "a colonial, imperial tool set up by American mercenaries and Israeli military to actually continue with the genocide by providing food in not the necessary quantities, and providing it in a way that is so horribly undignified and does not align with any existing human engineering principles and practices."

He called on the international community to urgently confront the situation: "This type of evil that is being inflicted upon the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel, and being allowed to happen by Israel's allies and partners, ... I think it really is something for all of us to reflect on as to how to prevent this happening ever again for any peoples in this world, but that can only happen when we stop it."

Responding to Anadolu's question on the visibility of malnutrition in Gaza, Ge said malnutrition was even very visible one and a half years ago when he visited the strip, and it only "worsened."

"I remember looking after patients as young as 12-14 months of age who should be walking by their developmental milestones that they were not walking because of severe malnutrition," he said. "I remember looking after a patient who was 9 to 10 years old, who was previously walking and no longer walking due to severe malnutrition."

Gaza health system already at 'irreversible point'

Maysa Hawwash, the founding leader of Doctors Against Genocide, said the situation has already crossed a critical threshold.

Asked by Anadolu if the situation is reaching an irreversible point, she said: "The easy answer to this is that we're already at an irreversible stage. But that doesn't mean that we should stop trying to reverse it."

She noted that every hospital in Gaza has been bombed, with only a few barely functioning.

"The solution is to really push hard to end this now, hold the perpetrators accountable, go in and start rebuilding," she said.

"The genocide in Gaza is not an isolated event," Hawwash noted, saying that if it is not stopped, it will spread to the West Bank, which she described as having an impact already present. Beyond that will be unavoidable, she added.

At least 56,331 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's attacks since October 2023, according to the latest Health Ministry data.