The number of people killed in Gaza is nearing the 9,000 mark
amid mounting concerns over the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes
on a densely-populated refugee camp near Gaza City, while a key
hospital has stopped operations and UN humanitarians are unable
to deliver aid to the north as the ground war intensifies.
According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, 8,805 Palestinians
have been killed since 7 October, including at least 3,648
children and 2,187 women, and some 22,240 have been injured, UN
humanitarian coordination affairs office OCHA said.
Strikes on Jabalia Refugee Camp
OCHA stressed that as Israeli ground operations and bombardments
in northern Gaza continued, “among the deadliest incidents” were
heavy airstrikes hitting Jabalia Refugee Camp on Wednesday “for
the second day in a row and within less than 24 hours”. The
strikes reportedly destroyed multiple residential buildings and
killed “dozens”, OCHA said.
The UN human rights office OHCHR noted on
Wednesday that given the high number of civilian deaths and
injuries in Gaza “and the scale of the destruction following
Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious
concerns that these are disproportionate attacks
that could amount to war crimes."
Dozens of cancer patients could die
Meanwhile, in a blow to scores of chronically ill patients,
Gaza’s main cancer treatment centre, the Turkish-Palestinian
Friendship Hospital, ran out of fuel and was forced
to stop most of its activities. The lives of some 70
patients are in danger, OCHA wrote on social platform X on
Thursday.
OCHA also sounded the alarm over reports that the Al Hilo
Hospital, also in Gaza city, was reportedly struck by shelling
Wednesday night. “The hospital had absorbed and replaced Shifa
hospital’s maternity ward, which is being used now to treat the
wounded,” OCHA said.
Currently, 14 out of 35 hospitals across Gaza are not
functioning.
No aid deliveries to the north
Gaza city and northern Gaza have been “largely cut off” from the
rest of the strip as a result of the Israeli ground operations
and related clashes with Palestinian armed groups, OCHA said.
This means that the delivery of humanitarian aid from the south
to some 300,000 internally displaced persons in the north has
“come to a halt”.
OCHA reported that on Wednesday ten trucks carrying water, food
and medicines entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on the
enclave’s southern border with Egypt, bringing
the total number of aid trucks allowed in since 21
October to 227.
UN relief chief Martin Griffiths, who just completed a visit to
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said that “the
trucks which have crossed into Gaza so far following painstaking
negotiations offer some relief but are nowhere near enough”.
The entry of fuel essential for hospitals, ambulances and water
desalination plants remains banned by the Israeli authorities.
