EXPERT COMMENT
Catastrophe is imminent for civilians trapped in Gaza. States cannot provide the medical care needed without significant risk. The UN must step up and coordinate efforts, regardless of public rows with Israel.
The recent explosion at the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip emphasizes the risks to the delivery of safe emergency medical care in Gaza.
In other conflicts of recent decades, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Ethiopia, there has been ample space to deploy aid, but this is not the case in Gaza today.
Israel's civilians have been caught up in the conflict, as hostages and victims of Hamas's attacks. However, it is anticipated that Israel's health service has the capacity to manage its own casualties from this conflict. The country has one of the most technologically advanced healthcare systems in the world.
Gaza is clearly not in a state to deliver effective health care to its two million Palestinian citizens. The territory has sustained 136 attacks on healthcare installations since hostilities escalated on 7 October according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Access to external aid is limited, with delays and constraints on aid convoys coming across the Rafah crossing from Egypt.
The WHO said of the first shipment passing the Rafah Crossing on 21 October ‘The supplies currently heading into Gaza will barely begin to address the escalating health needs as hostilities continue to grow'.
The UN must now provide leadership for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and states to deliver the healthcare and aid to which all civilians caught up in conflict are entitled.
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