Aftermath of Israeli attack on Daraj clinic in Gaza City
Images show extent of devastation at Gaza’s UNRWA-run Jabalia Health Centre
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees has posted on X before and after images showing the extent of the centre’s destruction.
“Before the war, UNRWA met 70 to 80 percent of primary healthcare needs in Gaza,” the agency said. Now “only a fraction of UNRWA’s health centres remain operational,” it said.
These shocking pictures show the Jabalia Health Centre, before and after this devastating war.
Before the war, @UNRWA met 70-80% of primary healthcare needs in #Gaza.
Only a fraction of @UNRWA’s health centres remain operational, with minimal access to supplies.#CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/G57lusufBP
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 24, 2024
Israeli forces ‘do not respect’ ambulances or first aid workers: Gaza paramedic
Yousef al-Hindi, a paramedic and head of the ambulance unit in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah city, tells Al Jazeera that first aid workers are targeted by Israeli forces “directly and indirectly”.
“We are facing a lot of challenges,” he said. “Our work is becoming very risky to our lives because we are the first people who arrive on the scene. We are sometimes targeted directly or indirectly. The occupation forces do not respect the ethics of our work, the ambulances, or the first aid workers.”
Al-Hindi added the situation is “very dire” inside hospitals as well. “We are lacking all medical supplies, even the medical personnel to give patients some proper care,” he said.
Medics aim to screen thousands of Gaza children for malnutrition
Aid group International Medical Corps (IMC) and partners are planning to reach more than 200,000 children under five-years-old as hunger spreads, one of its doctors says.
A group of UN-led aid agencies estimates about 7 percent of Gazan children may be acutely malnourished, compared with 0.8 percent before Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7.
“With the displacement, communities are settling in new locations that do not have access to clean water, or there is not adequate access to food. We fear there are more cases being missed,” said Dr Munawwar Said.
Over the weekend, families were already coming into an IMC clinic in the central city of Deir el-Balah, which reopened after the agency said it had to shut down two centres in the southern city of Rafah because of insecurity.
Jana Ayad, 5, weighed just nine kilogrammes (19.8 pounds) when she arrived, suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting, nutrition officer Raghda Ibrahim Qeshta said. “My daughter was dying in front of me,” her mother Nasma Ayad said as she sat next to the bed. “I didn’t know what to do.”
