'Gaza is a public health disaster in the making': UN

WASHINGTON

The UN’s relief chief warned Wednesday of a health disaster in the Gaza Strip as hospitals are barely able to provide services due to the ongoing war.

"Hospitals are barely functioning. Infectious diseases are rife and spreading fast in overcrowded shelters. Hundreds of people with war injuries are unable to receive care. Gaza is a public health disaster in the making,” Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said on X.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners delivered fuel and other essential supplies to two hospitals in northern and southern Gaza this week, the UN agency said Wednesday in a statement.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the international community to "take urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardizing the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease," according to the statement.

The latest WHO assessments show that Gaza currently has 13 partially functioning hospitals and two minimally functioning ones, while 21 are not functioning at all, it added.

Israel launched a massive military campaign on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 21,110 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 55,243 others, according to local health authorities.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.