Israel’s Rafah operation ‘might result in a massacre’: WHO chief | World News
An Israeli army incursion into Gaza’s southern metropolis of Rafah might result in a “massacre”, the World Health Group warned Friday, saying contingency plans.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to crush Hamas’s remaining fighters in Rafah, the place a lot of Gaza’s inhabitants has sought refuge from practically seven months of conflict.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of attainable dire implications for the 1.2 million individuals sheltering in Rafah.
In an announcement, the WHO introduced contingency efforts, however warned “the damaged well being system wouldn’t be capable to deal with a surge in casualties and deaths {that a} Rafah incursion would trigger”.
“This contingency plan is Band-Aids,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO consultant within the Palestinian territories, advised reporters in Geneva. “It’ll completely not stop the anticipated substantial further mortality and morbidity attributable to a army operation.”
Based on the WHO, many of the besieged territory’s well being services have been broken or destroyed amid heavy Israeli bombardment.
Solely 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 22 of its 88 main well being services are “partially useful”, the UN well being company stated.
“As a part of contingency efforts, WHO and companions are urgently working to revive and resuscitate well being providers,” the assertion stated.
It added that Rafah’s three at present operational hospitals would turn out to be unreachable “when hostilities intensify of their neighborhood”.
As a substitute, the WHO is working to revive south Gaza’s largest hospital, the Nasser Medical Complicated in close by Khan Yunis, and set up further medical websites.
A army operation in Rafah might spark a brand new wave of displacement, resulting in extra overcrowding, restricted entry to meals, water and sanitation and extra outbreaks of illness, he added.
In its assertion, the WHO known as “for a right away and lasting ceasefire and the elimination of the obstacles to the supply of pressing humanitarian help into and throughout Gaza, on the scale that’s required.”
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian company OCHA, stated {that a} army operation in Rafah “might result in a slaughter”.
“For businesses already struggling to offer humanitarian support in Gaza, a floor invasion would strike a disastrous blow,” he advised reporters.
“Any floor operation would imply extra struggling and dying.”
The bloodiest-ever Gaza conflict began after an unprecedented assault on southern Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The assault resulted within the deaths of 1,170 individuals, largely civilians, based on an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants additionally took about 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 stay in Gaza. The military says 35 of them are lifeless.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory army offensive has killed greater than 34,000 individuals in Gaza — most of them ladies and youngsters — based on the well being ministry within the Hamas-run territory.
