Patients in Gaza hospitals beg for food and water as they lie ‘waiting to die,’ WHO official says

Patients in Gaza hospitals beg for food and water as they lie ‘waiting to die,’ WHO official says
Patients and internally displaced people are pictured at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 10, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Updated 18 January 2024
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Patients in Gaza hospitals beg for food and water as they lie ‘waiting to die,’ WHO official says

Patients in Gaza hospitals beg for food and water as they lie ‘waiting to die,’ WHO official says
  • Sean Casey paints grim picture of broken healthcare system amid surge in number of wounded and continuing restrictions on delivery of humanitarian aid
  • He calls for a ceasefire as only way to prevent more injuries and allow the sick and wounded in hospitals to receive proper treatment

NEW YORK CITY: More than 60,000 Palestinians injured so far during the war in Gaza, and the more than 200 people added to their ranks each day, not only continue to be deprived of adequate medical care, they are also in desperate need of food and water to survive, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

The UN agency painted a grim picture of a healthcare system brought to its knees amid the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the territory and continuing restrictions on access for humanitarian aid and healthcare workers, particularly to areas north of Rafah where “every movement throughout the Gaza Strip requires coordination. Every movement presents risks and logistical challenges.”

Sean Casey, the WHO’s emergency medical team coordinator, called for a ceasefire as the only way to properly address the new “level of desperation” in the crisis, adding that anything short of an end to the hostilities simply leaves humanitarian groups “addressing needs on a day-by-day basis.”

He added: “Every day we’re trying to play catch up with the 60,000 injuries and the 200-plus new injuries that are occurring every day, and a health system that is quickly losing its capacity.

“So what I would ask anybody who has any ability to change this dynamic is (for) a cessation of hostilities so that the injuries can stop and the aid can reach the people who need it the most. But short of that: improving access, simplifying access.”

Casey was speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters in New York following a five-week visit to Gaza. During the final week of his trip, he said his team tried “every single day, for seven days, to deliver fuel and supplies to Gaza City in the north, and every day those requests for coordinated movements were denied.

“That prevents us from bringing medicines to people who need them, from bringing water for dialysis machines to people who were sitting there waiting for care that can be provided. So access and safety are the most important.”

Casey spoke of the dire situation he saw during visits to Al-Shifa hospital and six of the 16 other hospitals that are the only ones that remain “minimally” functional out of the 36 that previously provided care in Gaza.

“Every time I went to the hospitals I saw evidence, again and again, of the simultaneous humanitarian catastrophe that’s unfolding, every day getting worse and worse, and the collapse of the health system day by day, with hospitals closing, health workers fleeing, casualties continuing to stream in, lack of access to medicines and medical supplies, and a lack of access to fuel to run hospital generators to keep the lights on, to keep the machines running,” he said.

This is happening alongside a “dramatic humanitarian catastrophe” in which “truckloads and busloads” of people continue to flee each day with all of their belongings to southern Gaza, where shelters made of “plastic sheeting and a couple of pieces of wood on the street now become their new home.”

The challenges posed by access restrictions imposed on humanitarian workers and limitations on their movement continue to hobble efforts by the WHO to deliver desperately needed medicines to hospitals that are still open, and to deploy additional doctors and nurses to help meet the “enormous demand of trauma patients, but also patients with every other clinical presentation that you would normally see,” such as “the pregnant women who still need antenatal care and who still need to deliver, and the people who require dialysis.”

Although Casey was able to visit Al-Shifa hospital, for 12 days his team was unable to deliver to it any food or medical supplies. With more than 700 beds, it is the most important healthcare facility in Gaza but has been “brought down to become a trauma-stabilization point,” he said.

“The whole hospital was filled with tens of thousands of displaced persons, living in the operating theaters, in the corridors, in the stairways. And the emergency department was seeing hundreds of patients a day, mostly trauma, with only a handful, literally five or six doctors or nurses, to care for all of those people.”

Casey said he saw “patients on the floor, so many you could barely move without stepping on somebody’s hands or feet.”

He spoke of patients at Al-Ahli hospital, also in northern Gaza, lying on church pews “basically waiting to die” in a hospital with no fuel, no power, no water, very little in the way of medical supplies and only a handful of staff remaining to take care of them.

Further south, at Al-Nasr medical complex in Khan Younes, only about 30 percent of staff remain, Casey said, and the facility is at about 200 percent of its bed capacity, with patients crammed into corridors and lying on floors. In its burns unit, one physician provides care for about 100 patients.

“So its a really horrifying situation in the hospitals,” he added.

He also described the challenges faced every day in attempts to organize aid convoys to deliver desperately needed fuel and relief supplies, and to send more surgeons, doctors and nurses to the hospitals “to try to save life and limb, to avoid unnecessary amputations, to treat the many children that I saw with terrible shrapnel injuries and gunshot wounds, and to establish field hospitals.”

Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, now hosts about 1 million displaced people, an almost four-fold increase on the 270,000 that were there just a few weeks ago.

The area “doesn’t have the healthcare infrastructure to deal with this huge influx of internally displaced persons,” Casey said. “It doesn’t have the physical space to host these people. They’re on the sidewalks, on the street.”

He said the WHO is working to set up additional field hospitals and provide more healthcare workers to replace those who were forced to flee for their lives, and to meet the significantly increased burden of care created by injuries and illnesses caused by the conflict and the atrocious living conditions. Displaced people who have lost most of their possessions are forced to sleep in tents with little or no access to the basic requirements for life, including food, clean water, heat and proper shelter, exposing them to infectious diseases, he added.


Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades

Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades
Updated 22 sec ago
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Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades

Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades
  • The census will be the first to employ advanced technologies for gathering and analyzing data, providing a comprehensive picture of Iraq’s demographic, social, and economic landscape
BAGHDAD: Iraq began its first nationwide population census in decades Wednesday, a step aimed at modernizing data collection and planning in a country long impacted by conflict and political divisions.
The act of counting the population is also contentious. The census is expected to have profound implications for Iraq’s resource distribution, budget allocations and development planning.
Minority groups fear that a documented decline in their numbers will bring decreased political influence and fewer economic benefits in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system.
The count in territories such as Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul — where control is disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in the north — has drawn intense scrutiny.
Ali Arian Saleh, the executive director of the census at the Ministry of Planning, said agreements on how to conduct the count in the disputed areas were reached in meetings involving Iraq’s prime minister, president and senior officials from the Kurdish region.
“Researchers from all major ethnic groups — Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and Christians — will conduct the census in these areas to ensure fairness,” he said.
The last nationwide census in Iraq was held in 1987. Another one held in 1997 excluded the Kurdish region.
The new census “charts a developmental map for the future and sends a message of stability,” Planning Minister Mohammed Tamim said in a televised address.
The census will be the first to employ advanced technologies for gathering and analyzing data, providing a comprehensive picture of Iraq’s demographic, social, and economic landscape, offiials say. Some 120,000 census workers will survey households across the country, covering approximately 160 housing units each over two days.
The Interior Ministry announced a nationwide curfew during the census period, restricting movement of citizens, vehicles and trains between cities, districts and rural areas, with exceptions for humanitarian cases.
The count will be carried out using the “de jure” method, in which people are counted in their usual area of residence, Saleh said.
That means that people internally displaced by years of war will be counted in the areas where they have since settled, not in their original communities. The census will not include Iraqis residing abroad or those forcibly displaced to other countries.
Saleh estimated Iraq’s population at 44.5 million and said the Kurdish region’s share of the national budget — currently 12 percent — is based on an estimated population of 6 million. The census will also clarify the number of public employees in the region.
By order of Iraq’s federal court, the census excluded questions about ethnicity and sectarian affiliation, focusing solely on broad religious categories such as Muslim and Christian.
“This approach is intended to prevent tensions and ensure the census serves developmental rather than divisive goals,” Saleh said. The census will be monitored by international observers who will travel across Iraq’s provinces to assess the data quality, he said.
Hogr Chato, director of the Irbil-based Public Aid Organization, said the census will reshape the map of political thinking and future decision making.
“Even though some leaders deny it, the data will inevitably have political and economic implications,” he said. “It’s also fair to allocate budgets based on population numbers, as areas with larger populations or those impacted by war need more resources.”
Chato said he believes the delays in conducting the census were not only due to security concerns but also political considerations. “There was data they didn’t want to make public, such as poverty levels in each governorate,” he said.
Ahead of the census, leaders in Iraq’s various communities urged people to be counted.
In Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, Abdul Wahhab Al-Samarrai, preacher at Imam Abu Hanifa Mosque, urged citizens to cooperate with the census.
“This is a duty for every Muslim to ensure the rights of future generations,” he said in a Friday sermon the week before the count.

UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear

UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear
Updated 17 min 37 sec ago
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UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear

UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear
  • The few resolutions that the United States did allow to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire
  • The latest draft of the resolution demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas

United Nations: The UN Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday on another draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in its latest attempt to exert pressure to end the war.
But the draft could be blocked by the United States, Israel’s main ally.
The latest draft of the resolution demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas and “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
The wording has angered Israel and raised fears of a US veto.
Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has called the text “shameful,” adding: “We cannot allow the UN to tie the hands of the State of Israel from protecting its citizens, and we will not stop fighting until we return all the kidnapped men and women home.”
“For us, it has to be a linkage between a ceasefire and the release of hostages,” said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador. “It has been our principle position from the beginning and it still remains.”
The war was triggered by Palestinian group Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, a stunning cross-border raid that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll from the resulting war had reached 43,972 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
Of 251 hostages seized during the October 7 attack, 97 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Almost all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
Since the beginning of the war, the Security Council has struggled to speak with one voice, as the United States used its veto power several times, although Russia and China have as well.
The few resolutions that the United States did allow to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
In March, the council called for a temporary ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but this appeal was ignored by the warring parties.
In June, the council pledged support for a multi-stage US ceasefire and hostage release plan that went nowhere.
Some diplomats have expressed hope that following Donald Trump’s election win on November 5, President Joe Biden might be more flexible in the few weeks he has left in power.
They imagined a possible repeat of events in December 2016 when then-president Barack Obama was finishing his second term and the council passed a resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories, a first since 1979.
The United States refrained from using its veto in this case, a break from traditional US support for Israel on the sensitive issue of settlements.
The draft being voted on Wednesday also calls for “safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance at scale,” including in besieged northern Gaza, and denounces any attempt to starve the Palestinians.
The Palestinian delegation at the UN has suggested this text does not go far enough.
“Gaza’s fate will haunt the world for generations to come,” ambassador Riyad Mansour warned.
He said the only course of action for the council is to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire under Chapter 7 of the UN charter.
That chapter allows the council to take steps to enforce its resolutions, such as sanctions, but the latest text makes no reference to this option.


Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
Updated 20 November 2024
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Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
  • During Oct. 7, 2023 attack which triggered war in Gaza, Hamas took 251 hostages
  • Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.


Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
Updated 20 November 2024
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Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
  • “Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu says

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.


Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan

Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan
Updated 20 November 2024
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Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan

Turkiye’s Erdogan says Israel’s Herzog was denied airspace en route to Azerbaijan
  • “In light of the situation assessment and for security reasons, the President of the State has decided to cancel his trip to the Climate Conference in Azerbaijan,” the Israeli presidency said

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkiye refused to allow Israeli President Isaac Herzog to use its airspace to attend the COP climate summit in Azerbaijan, highlighting Ankara’s stance amid tensions with Israel.
“We did not allow the Israeli president to use our airspace to attend the COP summit. We suggested alternative routes and other options,” Erdogan told reporters at the G20 Summit in Brazil.
Herzog ended up canceling the visit.
“In light of the situation assessment and for security reasons, the President of the State has decided to cancel his trip to the Climate Conference in Azerbaijan,” the Israeli presidency said. Israel launched a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza a year ago after the Palestinian Islamist group’s deadly cross-border attack.
Turkiye withdrew its ambassador in Israel for consultations after the Gaza war broke out, but has not officially severed its ties with Israel and its embassy remains open and operational.
“But whether he was able to go or not, I honestly don’t know,” Erdogan said on Herzog’s visit to Baku.
“On certain matters, as Turkiye, we are compelled to take a stand, and we will continue to do so,” he said.