The World Health Organization stated it led missions to barely functioning hospitals in northern Gaza on the weekend, describing rising desperation and ravenous individuals stripping an support truck of provides.

The UN well being company and its companions delivered support, together with gas, to the devastated Al-Shifa hospital, as soon as Gaza’s greatest and most superior medical facility, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated late Sunday on X, previously Twitter.

What the members within the December 23 mission witnessed was “rising desperation due to acute hunger,” Tedros stated.

“Partners demand immediate scale-up of food and water to ensure population health and stability.”

The warfare broke out when Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,140 individuals and seized 250 hostages, in keeping with an AFP tally primarily based on Israeli figures.

Israel has responded with a relentless army marketing campaign that has killed greater than 20,400 individuals, largely girls and kids, in keeping with Gaza’s well being ministry.

At Al-Shifa, Tedros warned that “relentless hostilities and massive numbers of wounded people have brought its capacities to its knees”.

He voiced hope that Saturday’s supply of 19,200 litres of generator gas would assist revive very important providers on the hospital, which may at the moment solely present “the most basic of first aid”.

But, he pressured, “more will be needed”.

‘Risk of famine’

The facility, which has suffered vital injury and seen its oxygen plant destroyed, can also be offering refuge to round 50,000 displaced individuals, in keeping with hospital authorities.

Sean Casey, a WHO Emergency Medical Teams coordinator who was on the mission, described overflowing surgical procedure wards and being unable to judge al-Shifa’s working theatres, “because there are people inside and they are not opening the door”.

At the identical time, “everyone we speak to is hungry,” Casey stated in a video shot inside Al-Shifa, with crowds of displaced individuals, primarily youngsters, milling within the background.

“There’s the risk of famine.”

Illustrating the determined scenario, individuals grabbed meals support off one of many vans en route for the hospital.

“Amid dire food shortages, the search for food is forcing people into horrible states of hunger and leading some — out of desperation — to take supplies from delivery trucks,” Tedros stated.

“I can only imagine the torment that would drive people to such lengths.”

The WHO chief warned that the dire scenario at Al-Shifa was “a microcosm of the nightmare playing out across Gaza, where drastic shortages of medicines, food, power, water and – above all – safety imperil the population”.

Saturday’s joint mission additionally went to the NGO-run Patient Friends Hospital, which gives maternity, trauma and emergency care, however lacks specialised surgeons, intensive care employees, antibiotics and fundamental reduction medicines, WHO stated.

The groups additionally visited the Al-Sahaba and Al-Helou maternity hospitals, which collectively help with as much as 35 deliveries a day, whereas dealing with shortages of gas, meals, water, oxygen, antibiotics and anesthesia.

“Hospitals should be places for care and recovery, not danger and unrelenting suffering,” Tedros stated.

He reiterated his name for a ceasefire, and pressured the necessity for “sustained humanitarian access”.