Africa: Gaza Fighting Spreads Into Hospitals Where There’s ‘No Way in and Out’

Amid continuing heavy fighting in Gaza on Tuesday morning including reported attacks on hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis, UN humanitarians expressed deep concern for patients and others seeking treatment who had “no way in and out”.

Speaking in Geneva, Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that Al-Khair Hospital was “one of the two hospitals that is now being raided”, while Nasser Hospital was “now basically besieged around the hospital and has no way in and out”.

“I know it must be a horrible scenario on the ground there with people not knowing what the next minutes will bring.”

Desperate health needs

The WHO spokesperson added that only 14 hospitals are still functioning in Gaza – seven in the north and seven in the south – where health needs are overwhelming after more than three months of heavy bombardment by Israeli Defense Forces, triggered by Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel that left some 1,200 dead and approximately 250 taken hostage.

The development follows an alert on X, formerly Twitter, from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday evening about reports of “continuous fighting” near hospitals in Kheir Younis, where violence prevented “newly injured people outside the hospitals from being reached and receiving care”.

The situation is “absolutely unacceptable and not what any health facility anywhere in the world should go through”, Mr. Lindmeier insisted, noting that some 20 hospitals no longer function across Gaza.

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