Gaza health situation is 'catastrophic': WHO chief

The impact of the Israel-Hamas conflict on Gaza's healthcare sector has been "catastrophic", World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday at an emergency board meeting, saying conditions were ideal for the spread of deadly diseases.

However, he said it would be all but impossible for the WHO to improve the situation given the ongoing violence.

"It's stating the obvious to say that the impact of the conflict on health is catastrophic," Tedros told the 34-member board. "In summary, health needs have increased dramatically and the capacity of the health system has been reduced to one third of what it was."

"Gaza's health system is on its knees and collapsing," Tedros said, with only 14 out of 36 hospitals functioning with any capacity at all, and of them, only two are in the north of the coastal territory.

Only 1,400 hospital beds out of an original 3,500 are still available, while the two major hospitals in southern Gaza are operating at three times their bed capacity, running out of supplies and sheltering thousands of displaced people, Tedros added.

A motion being reviewed by the board proposed by Afghanistan, Morocco, Qatar and Yemen demands passage for medical personnel and their supplies and tasks the WHO with securing funding to rebuild hospitals.

Yet Tedros said that it would be "almost impossible" to meet those requests given the security situation on the ground and said he deeply regretted that the United Nations Security Council could not agree on a ceasefire following a U.S. veto.

"Resupplying health facilities has become extremely difficult and is deeply compromised by the security situation on the ground and inadequate resupply from outside Gaza," he said.

Such WHO emergency sessions are rare and have occurred during health crises including during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and during West Africa's Ebola epidemic in 2015.

(With input from agencies)