Israel is expanding its offensive in the South which is already strained beyond the max with no more places for people to go
World Health Organization warns it "cannot afford" to lose hospitals in southern Gaza
The World Health Organization has stressed that it "cannot afford" to lose the remaining operational hospitals in southern Gaza, warning the enclave's health care sector is collapsing at a "rapid pace."
As Israeli calls for evacuations continue to push people to the south of the Gaza strip, the WHO said it has strained the region's already stretched facilities. The region's hospitals are now "bursting with patients" and internally displaced people (IDPs), WHO Emergency Medical Team Coordinator Sean Casey told a press briefing Tuesday.
Only 13 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning, and bed occupancy is at 351%, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah.
Casey, who has carried out a number of WHO missions to hospitals in Gaza, described the "intensification of hostilities" around the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis as "really worrying." "We cannot lose the health facilities. They absolutely must be protected. This is the last line of secondary tertiary health care that Gaza has from the north to the south," Casey stressed.
"We cannot afford to lose any hospital," Richard Peeperkorn, a WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian Territory, said at the briefing.
What is Israel planning next...
Israeli health ministry preps hospitals for mass casualties: Report
The Israeli public broadcaster Kann News reports that the country’s health ministry instructed hospitals to be prepared to receive thousands of additional casualties in a short period of time.
The report by the Israeli outlet underscores the growing possibility of an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which Israeli officials have hinted at for the last several weeks.
