Ghebreyesus renews demand to allow WHO missions to reach surrounded patients in the Shifa Medical Complex

Geneva-(ST)- Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, renewed his demand that the Israeli occupation authorities  allow the organization’s missions to reach the besieged  patients in the Shifa Medical Complex in the Gaza Strip, stressing the inadmissibility of targeting the health sector.

Ghebreyesus explained in a post on the X platform carried by the United Nations News Center that The World Health Organization and its partners were forced to postpone a very complex joint mission to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza due to the delay in procedures, after the Israeli occupation authorities had rejected three previous missions to the hospital, which have been under siege since the 18th of this March.

Ghebreyesus said: “According to the received information , there are 100 patients and 50 workers inside the facility that has stopped working due to the  bombing surrounding it,” adding: “We are very concerned about their condition and safety.”

He continued: “The repeated refusals are not only preventing us from reaching patients, but they are  also disrupting other critical life-saving operations .”

He also called on the Israeli occupation authorities to facilitate the opening of a safe humanitarian corridor  for the World Health Organization and its partners to support the convening of patients.

Ghebreyesus reiterated that “international humanitarian law is clear, which stipulates that the health sector must not be militarized or attacked.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed that the obstacles imposed by “Israel” on the arrival of relief  have weakened the ability of humanitarian aids to reach those in need throughout the Gaza Strip, warning that the blockade imposed on the Strip, including closed crossings and lack of water, electricity which consists the major humanitarian catastrophe in the stricken strip.

The office reported that the Israeli bombardment continues and it is intense, and there are ground operations in most parts of the Gaza Strip, which led to more civilian casualties, displacement, and the destruction of homes and other infrastructure, in addition to the continued killing of journalists and media workers in Gaza by Israeli bombing.

Hanan Shamout