WHO blasts Israel as medical missions denied entry into northern Gaza amid siege, attacks

The World Health Organization (WHO) says Israel has blocked two missions from entering the war-ravaged northern Gaza amid incessant siege and attacks, as a UN inquiry has found that the regime has been deliberately targeting health system in the besieged strip.

On Thursday, the WHO said the missions, which attempted to carry out medical evacuations of critical patients and deliver life-saving fuel, blood units, and medical supplies, were forced to turn back because of Israeli checkpoints and other impediments.

A total of seven similar missions were denied or impeded this week, the UN agency said.

That came as Israeli forces have been conducting a major offensive in Jabalia refugee camp, which is under days-long siege, and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza since earlier this week.

The Israeli military ordered residents of Jabalia and nearby areas to relocate to the so-called “humanitarian zones” designated by Israel in southern Gaza, but Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe places in the densely populated strip.

The health officials also said the Israeli military on Wednesday ordered the evacuation of Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, giving patients and medics 24 hours to leave the hospitals or risk being stormed as happened earlier in the attack on Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on Israel to "stop evacuation orders, protect hospitals", and "facilitate humanitarian missions".

"North Gaza has barely any health services left. People have nowhere to go," he said Thursday, calling for ceasefire.

"All people trapped in this conflict need peace."

Israel turning north Gaza into ‘lifeless desert’ via expulsion orders: Doctors Without Borders

Israel’s forced expulsion orders in northern Gaza is turning the war-battered area into a "lifeless desert,” says Doctors Without Borders.

Israel committing 'extermination': UN inquiry 

Amid Israel’s destruction of Gaza's medical system, a UN inquiry said Israel has been “committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities”.

"Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system," Navi Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for human rights and chair of the inquiry, said in a statement on Thursday in advance of a full report that will be presented to the UN General Assembly late this month.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, about 1,000 medics have been killed in Gaza in the past year, in what the WHO described as "an irreplaceable loss and a massive blow to the health system".

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured tens of thousands others.

Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

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