Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?

1 Devastation of Gaza’s health system
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2 Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?
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Updated 08 July 2024
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Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?

Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?
  • WHO Regional Director for Eastern Mediterranean Dr. Hanan Bakhy described the reality facing health workers
  • Saudi physician discussed dire situation in Syria and Lebanon; funding shortages and flight of medical specialists

DUBAI: The devastation of Gaza’s health system and the magnitude and complexity of the trauma endured by the Palestinian people are difficult for aid workers to wrap their heads around, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, has said.

Appearing on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” the Saudi-born WHO official described the reality facing Palestinians and aid workers operating under Israeli bombardment in the embattled enclave.

“It is difficult for me to interact with and listen to those devastating stories, let alone … the photos and the videos that we see every day on TV,” Balkhy said.

“I was at the Rafah border crossing from the Egypt side. I was able to visit the patients that were hosted in the hospitals in Al-Arish … The stories that I’ve heard and the types of trauma that I have seen are quite significant.”

Balkhy, who took up her appointment as regional director in February this year and is the first woman to hold the position, described witnessing “maimed children and women” and “young adults with lost limbs.”

She said: “The devastation that we’re seeing, and the magnitude and complexity of trauma, is something that we will need to wrap our heads around and be able to find very creative ways to work with partners, the member states who have been very thankfully supporting us. But none of this is enough.”

Since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7 last year following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, the Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean coast has endured heavy Israeli bombardment and a fierce ground offensive, which has displaced much of the population. 




Appearing on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” the Saudi-born WHO official described the reality facing Palestinians and aid workers. (AN Photo)

The bombing raids, the collapse of civilian infrastructure including sanitation services, and chronic shortages of food, drinking water and medications have brought Gaza’s health system to its knees.

Just 33 percent of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 30 percent of its primary healthcare centers are functional in some capacity. Asked whether the health situation in Gaza is beyond saving, Balkhy said the WHO would continue to do its best to serve patients and those injured.

“The situation in Gaza has been quite devastating for all of us, especially the partners working on the ground,” she told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen. “But WHO continues to work with its partners and with whoever’s on the ground at the moment in delivering fuel, medical supplies, and other aid.”

In particular, Balkhy highlighted the important role played by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The agency came under significant financial pressure earlier this year after major Western donors suspended their funding in response to Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staff members had participated in the Oct. 7 attack.

Balkhy said UNRWA “is very important as we work with them to try to sustain what is left of the primary healthcare (system) and restore what has been significantly damaged, but also to work together with the partners to evacuate the necessary patients.”

Despite the challenges faced by the aid community, Balkhy said: “We stay, we serve, and we continue to do our best to serve the patients and the injured in Gaza.”

Compounding the health crisis in Gaza are the chronic shortages of food reaching civilians via the limited number of border crossings from Israel and from Egypt through the Rafah crossing.

Since the conflict began, Israel has limited the flow of aid permitted to enter the territory, claiming it was being commandeered by Hamas. As a result of these delays at the border, a significant proportion of the population is facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.

To add insult to injury, Balkhy said truckloads of urgently needed foodstuffs provided by aid agencies and donor nations were going rotten while awaiting clearance to enter Gaza.

“The catastrophic situation is in the numbers if you look at them,” said Balkhy. “So, 96 percent of the population of Gaza is facing acute food insecurity on a regular basis, and more than half of that population does not have any food to eat in their house, and 20 percent go for entire days and nights without any eating.

“I actually have been at the Rafah crossing, and I visited the hospitals in Al-Arish on the soil of Egypt and I’ve seen the tens or hundreds of trucks lined up to try to cross and provide the necessary aid, including food.

“Now, facing the summer months right now, it’s going to be even more difficult. Already we have information that the extreme waiting at the border and the delays (are) allowing for this food and some of this sensitive aid to go rotten or go bad, and that is really very difficult for us to manage.

“So, the situation is dire, the food catastrophe is significant. On top of (that is), of course, the lack of our ability to deliver as much health aid as we would wish.”




A Palestinian man walks along a road past damaged buildings during the Israeli military bombardment of Gaza City on July 7 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Efforts to secure a ceasefire have been repeatedly thwarted in recent months, first by US vetoes at the UN Security Council, and later by the unwillingness of the warring parties to reach a compromise.

Although the UN Security Council has since passed a resolution calling on Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire, coupled with the Biden administration’s own peace plan, a pause in the fighting to allow an exchange of prisoners and the delivery of more aid has proved elusive.

Asked what difference a ceasefire would make to Gaza’s health crisis, Balkhy said it would allow the WHO and other aid agencies to move freely within the enclave to reach those most in need and to restore its shattered infrastructure.

“We very much welcome the Security Council resolution. Peace is the only way for us to move forward with helping the people in Gaza,” she said.

“The significant impact that has been taking place on the healthcare settings, on the health workforce, the complexities of the trauma that are taking place, requires that we are capable to freely move within Gaza, accessing the very difficult areas, even in the north, the middle and the south, to be able to have the people move back into their homes, to be able to have access to healthcare for not just the traumas.

“Remember, there are people who have chronic diseases. People are not having access to their hypertension medications, for example, their dialysis treatment, people who require a treatment for their cancers. All of these things … have been jeopardized to a very big degree.

“The benefit of a ceasefire today and a permanent peace agreement will allow us to go back and build with all of the partners on the ground and with the staff from Gaza themselves.”

International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on medical workers and infrastructure, and yet, from Ukraine to Syria and more recently in Sudan, such infrastructure has been damaged and destroyed by warring parties, drawing accusations of war crimes.

Asked whether similar destruction of health infrastructure in Gaza amounted to a war crime, Balkhy said the level of protection required under international law appears to have been lacking.

“Healthcare facilities and health workforces are protected under international humanitarian law. And, unfortunately, that has not been the case so far,” she said.

“When we talk about the amount of people that have been injured and killed during the past few months, and large numbers of them are women and children, then that question definitely comes up quite strongly.”

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, there have been regular claims from Israeli authorities that Hamas has been using a network of tunnels, command centers and weapons caches hidden under hospitals, thereby using patients and medical staff as human shields.

Asked whether WHO staff had seen any evidence to support or debunk the Israeli claims, Balkhy said: “I have not been aware of any evidence that supports that the hospitals have been used for such reasons.

“Of course, we are not the entity that has the role or the mandate to investigate this. So, the evidence, even if it existed, does not come to us and we have not seen anything that supports those claims.”

A major concern among regional governments and the wider international community is the potential for the war in Gaza to spill over into a broader conflict, dragging in vulnerable neighbors, Iran and its regional proxies, and even the US.

Lebanon is especially vulnerable, with months of cross-border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia threatening to escalate into a full-blown war. Balkhy said an escalation would be “catastrophic” for Lebanon.

“We do hope and pray that this escalation does not take place because the health systems within Lebanon and within many of the countries bordering the Occupied Palestinian Territories are already overwhelmed with what is happening,” she said.

“And at any rate, none of us would wish for further war, further destruction. It’s really not what any human being … would want to see. So, we do hope that diplomacy plays its role and the region can calm down and that this escalation does not happen.

“If it does happen, then I can tell you it will be extremely catastrophic for the fragile health systems.”

Indeed, since Lebanon plunged into a grave economic crisis in late 2019, medical workers have been leaving the country in droves in search of better opportunities. 

Likewise in Syria, following more than a decade of civil war, sanctions and isolation, compounded by the catastrophic twin earthquakes of February 2023, medical staff have been abandoning the country.

Asked what could be done to convince medical workers to remain and serve their compatriots, Balkhy said it was a matter of economics, security and dignity. 




Balkhy took up her appointment as regional director in February this year and is the first woman to hold the position. (AN Photo)

“It’s very important to understand that every individual, and this is coming from my personal perspective, every individual seeks to live a dignified, healthy life,” she said.

“So, if you have been trained as a healthcare provider and you’re not able to perform and to practice the medicine that you have learned, then it’s very difficult.

“It’s not about convincing. It’s about the economy. It’s about the lifestyle. It’s about the security and the safety for them to be able to feel that they can practice and do what they want to do when it comes to the healthcare provision.

“And that has not been secured at the moment because of the lack of the equipment, the lack of the medications and the lack of opportunities to progress in their career as healthcare providers.”

She added: “I come from the region, so I know quite well that they would love nothing more than to stay in their country. They would love nothing more than to serve their own people. 

“And that applies by the way to several other countries in the region. In Lebanon, it’s the same thing. And Palestine, it’s the same thing. The people do not want to leave their countries and their lands, but the situation that they’re in pushes them to seek a better life elsewhere.”

 


Polio still circulating in Gaza, mass vaccination to resume: WHO

Updated 52 sec ago
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Polio still circulating in Gaza, mass vaccination to resume: WHO

Polio still circulating in Gaza, mass vaccination to resume: WHO
The UN health agency said no more polio cases had been reported since a 10-month-old child was paralyzed in Gaza last August
“The presence of the virus still poses a risk to children with low or no immunity, in Gaza and throughout the region“

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Wednesday that mass polio vaccination would resume in Gaza on Saturday, targeting nearly 600,000 children, after the virus was again detected in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The United Nations health agency said no more polio cases had been reported since a 10-month-old child was paralyzed in Gaza last August.
But it said that poliovirus had been found again in wastewater samples taken in the Gaza Strip in December and January, “signalling ongoing circulation in the environment, putting children at risk.”
“The presence of the virus still poses a risk to children with low or no immunity, in Gaza and throughout the region.”
A new campaign would therefore take place from February 22 to 26, with the aim of reaching more than 591,000 children with oral polio vaccines, it said.
The aim was to reach all children under 10, including those previously missed, “to close immunity gaps and end the outbreak,” it said, adding that another vaccination round was planned for April.
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious and potentially fatal.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and mainly affects children under the age of five.
After the August case was reported, brief localized pauses in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza were agreed to allow for two vaccination rounds in the territory in September and October.
Those rounds reached more than 95 percent of the children targeted, WHO said.
But it warned that some areas in the north, including Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, were inaccessible for the second vaccination round.
As a result around 7,000 children had not received their necessary second dose.
The ceasefire in effect since January 19 “means health workers have considerably better access now,” WHO said.
The agency stressed that “pockets of individuals with low or no immunity provide the virus an opportunity to continue spreading and potentially cause disease.”
“The current environment in Gaza, including overcrowding in shelters and severely damaged water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, which facilitates fecal-oral transmission, create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus,” it warned.
It warned that the movement of people after the current ceasefire could help spread the virus.
WHO stressed that there are no risks to vaccinating a child more than once.
“Each dose gives additional protection which is needed during an active polio outbreak.”

Egypt says Gaza should be rebuilt without displacing Palestinians

Egypt says Gaza should be rebuilt without displacing Palestinians
Updated 25 min 4 sec ago
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Egypt says Gaza should be rebuilt without displacing Palestinians

Egypt says Gaza should be rebuilt without displacing Palestinians
  • “We stressed the importance of the international community adopting a plan to reconstruct the Gaza strip without displacing Palestinians,” President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said
  • UNRWA said its operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will suffer

DUBAI: Egypt’s president called on the international community on Wednesday to adopt a plan to rebuild war-torn Gaza without displacing Palestinians, after a proposal by US President Donald Trump angered Arabs with his own vision for the enclave.
“We stressed the importance of the international community adopting a plan to reconstruct the Gaza strip without displacing Palestinians — I repeat, without displacing Palestinians from their lands,” President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi told a press conference with Spain’s prime minister in Madrid.
Trump has proposed a plan to redevelop the tiny enclave into an international beach resort after resettling its Palestinian inhabitants. He called on Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians.
Egypt and Jordan, along with other Arab states, rejected the plan and said they will work on an alternative to counter Trump’s proposal, but there are no signs they are making serious progress.
El-Sisi added that the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), which provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, was indispensable for Palestinians.
UNRWA said its operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will suffer after an Israeli law banned it in October on Israeli land — including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally — and contact with Israeli authorities from Jan. 30.
The United Arab Emirates’ President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told the United States’ secretary of state Marco Rubio on Wednesday that his country rejects a proposal to displace Palestinians from their land, the Emirati state news agency WAM reported.
The leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Qatar are expected to discuss the plan in Riyadh this month before it can be presented to an Arab League summit in Cairo in March.


Suspected Somali pirates seize a new Yemeni fishing boat in second recent attack

Suspected Somali pirates seize a new Yemeni fishing boat in second recent attack
Updated 19 February 2025
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Suspected Somali pirates seize a new Yemeni fishing boat in second recent attack

Suspected Somali pirates seize a new Yemeni fishing boat in second recent attack
  • Piracy off the Somali coast peaked in 2011 when 237 attacks were reported

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Suspected Somali pirates have seized another Yemeni fishing boat off the Horn of Africa, authorities said.
In a statement late Tuesday, a European naval force known as EUNAVFOR Atalanta said the attack targeted a dhow, a traditional ship that plies the waters of the Mideast, off the town of Eyl in Somalia.
It said the attack Monday remained under investigation. It comes 10 days after another pirate attack on another Yemeni fishing boat which ultimately ended with the pirates fleeing and the mariners on board being recovered unhurt.
Piracy off the Somali coast peaked in 2011 when 237 attacks were reported. Somali piracy in the region at the time cost the world’s economy some $7 billion — with $160 million paid out in ransoms, according to the Oceans Beyond Piracy monitoring group.
The threat was diminished by increased international naval patrols, a strengthening central government in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, and other efforts.
However, Somali pirate attacks have resumed at a greater pace over the last year, in part due to the insecurity caused by Yemen’s Houthi rebels launching their attacks in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
In 2024, there were seven reported incidents off Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau.


After decades in exile, Syria’s Jews visit Damascus

After decades in exile, Syria’s Jews visit Damascus
Updated 19 February 2025
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After decades in exile, Syria’s Jews visit Damascus

After decades in exile, Syria’s Jews visit Damascus
  • The new authorities have said all of Syria’s communities will play a role in their country’s future
  • The synagogues and Jewish school in the Old City remained relatively well-preserved

DAMASCUS: For the first time in three decades, Rabbi Joseph Hamra and his son Henry read from a Torah scroll in a synagogue in the heart of Syria’s capital Damascus, carefully passing their thumbs over the handwritten text as if still in awe they were back home.
The father and son fled Syria in the 1990s, after then-Syrian president Hafez Assad lifted a travel ban on the country’s historic Jewish community, which had faced decades of restrictions including on owning property or holding jobs.
Virtually all of the few thousand Jews in Syria promptly left, leaving less than 10 in the Syrian capital. Joseph and Henry — just a child at the time — settled in New York.
“Weren’t we in a prison? So we wanted to see what was on the outside,” said Joseph, now 77, on his reasons for leaving at the time. “Everyone else who left with us is dead.”
But when Assad’s son and successor as president Bashar Assad was toppled in December, the Hamra family began planning a once-unimaginable visit to Damascus with the help of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based advocacy group.
They met with Syria’s deputy foreign minister at the ministry, now managed by caretaker authorities installed by the Islamist rebels who ousted Assad after more than 50 years of family rule that saw itself as a bastion of secular Arab nationalism.
The new authorities have said all of Syria’s communities will play a role in their country’s future. But incidents of religious intolerance and reports of conservative Islamists proselytizing in public have kept more secular-minded Syrians and members of minority communities on edge.
Henry Hamra, now aged 48, said Syria’s foreign ministry had now pledged to protect Jewish heritage.
“We need the government’s help, we need the government’s security and it’s going to happen,” he said.
Walking through the narrow passages of the Old City, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site, Henry and Joseph ran into their onetime neighbors — Palestinian Syrians — and later marveled at hand-painted Hebrew lettering at several synagogues.
“I want to see my kids come back and see this beautiful synagogue. It’s a work of art,” said Henry.
But some things were missing, he said, including a golden-lettered Torah from one of the synagogues that was now stored in a library in Israel, to where thousands of Syrian Jews fled throughout the 20th century.
While the synagogues and Jewish school in the Old City remained relatively well-preserved, Syria’s largest synagogue in Jobar, an eastern suburb of Damascus, was reduced to rubble during the nearly 14-year civil war that erupted after Assad’s violent suppression of protests against him.
Jobar was home to a large Jewish community for hundreds of years until the 1800s and the synagogue, built in honor of the biblical prophet Elijah, was looted before it was destroyed.


One person killed in Israeli strike in south Lebanon, Health Ministry says

One person killed in Israeli strike in south Lebanon, Health Ministry says
Updated 18 min 8 sec ago
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One person killed in Israeli strike in south Lebanon, Health Ministry says

One person killed in Israeli strike in south Lebanon, Health Ministry says
  • February 18 was the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces
  • The Health Ministry also said two people were injured by Israeli gunfire

BEIRUT: One person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on the southern Lebanese border town of Aita Al-Shaab, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
February 18 was the deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanese towns under a US-mediated ceasefire agreement which ended the war between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia last year.
Israeli officials said some forces would temporarily remain in five positions across the border, a move they said is deemed essential for the country’s security.
Hezbollah, which suffered significant losses during the war, said Israel was still occupying Lebanese land and that it held the Lebanese government responsible for a pull-out of all Israeli forces.
Israel had been due to withdraw by January 26, but this was extended to February 18 after it accused Lebanon of failing to enforce the terms. Lebanon at the time accused Israel of delaying its withdrawal.
The Health Ministry also said two people were injured by Israeli gunfire in the southern town of Al-Wazzani.