15 November 2023; MEMO: The World Health Organisation head said, on Wednesday, that the Israeli military incursion into Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza was “totally unacceptable”, Reuters reports.
Israeli troops entered Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, on Wednesday as part of their assault on the Palestinian Territory.
Israel says Hamas fighters have headquarters in tunnels beneath it. Hamas denies this is the case.
WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a press conference in Geneva that patients and staff must be protected even if hospitals were used for military purposes.
“Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” he said. “Israel’s military incursion into Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable.”
The WHO, a UN agency, also said it was “urgently exploring” the possibility for evacuating patients and medical staff from the facility.
"To make sure this can be enabled, of course there is a need for safe passage and also for fuel for the ambulances" said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Peeperkorn said that, according to their latest information, 34 of 39 premature infants in the hospital were still alive, and 82 bodies had been buried in a mass grave in the grounds.
A further 80 bodies remained unburied, he said, and there was no oxygen, power or water at the hospital. There are 633 patients there, in total, plus around 500 staff and up to 4,000 people sheltering in the hospital grounds, he added.
Tedros, who earlier on Wednesday had said the WHO had lost touch with health personnel at Shifa, said the organisation had no reports of the numbers of deaths and injuries in Gaza more broadly for the last three days, making it harder to assess the state of the healthcare system there.
He said one WHO staff member had described it as:
"No water, no electricity, only bombing, bombing, bombing…"
At the press conference, Tedros also reiterated calls for a ceasefire and better access for aid into Gaza, as well as for the release of Israeli hostages being held there by Hamas.
The WHO’s chief legal expert, Steve Solomon, said health facilities were always under the protection of international law.
“Under international humanitarian law, hospitals … must be safeguarded against all acts of war,” he said.
