GENEVA: The World Health Organization has called for the immediate entry of medicines and essential supplies into the besieged Gaza Strip to enable a large-scale restoration of health services.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Friday that the organization has supported the establishment of a new family health center in northern Gaza, where access to healthcare remains extremely limited.
“It will deliver essential health services, including noncommunicable disease management, maternal and child health services, routine vaccination, wound care, and basic physical rehabilitation, alongside referrals for cases requiring higher-level care,” he stated on X.
BACKGROUND
Nearly 90% of the Gaza Strip’s water infrastructure was destroyed, according to the UN, including desalination plants and sewage treatment facilities.
He added: “Health needs across Gaza remain immense. To move beyond immediate lifesaving response and begin restoring health services at scale.”
He also called for the “protection of healthcare, essential medicines and supplies to be allowed into Gaza without delay, removal of bureaucratic barriers and access restrictions on globally recognized essential medicines, expedited entry of spare parts for medical equipment and generators.”
Palestinians and international aid bodies say supplies reaching Gaza are still insufficient, despite a ceasefire reached in October that included guarantees of increased aid.
Most of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have been displaced, many now living in bombed-out homes and makeshift tents pitched on open ground, roadsides, or atop the ruins of destroyed buildings.
Water restrictions and shortages have been a recurring issue throughout the war in Gaza, with pipelines destroyed, water trucks hit by strikes and spent munitions seeping into the groundwater aquifer many use for wells.
In a report on water and sanitation this week, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, a nongovernmental group, accused Israel of using water as a weapon of war, “systemically depriving” people in what it calls a “campaign of collective punishment.” Other groups, including Human Rights Watch, have lodged similar accusations.
Palestinians say water shortages have persisted in the war-torn enclave more than six months after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas stopped most of the fighting.
Nearly 90 percent of the enclave’s water infrastructure was destroyed, according to the UN, including desalination plants and sewage treatment facilities.
Before the war, government providers and private companies distributed water via trucks and underground pipes.
Wastewater was circulated to treatment facilities via underground pipes as well.
The infrastructure is a top priority in Gaza’s reconstruction plan.
Wash Cluster, a UN-led network of nongovernmental organizations focused on water and sanitation, estimates that 80 percent of people in Gaza rely on water delivered by trucks to central distribution points.
