WHO chief calls Gaza ‘death zone’

With thousands of Gaza residents and hundreds of aid workers reportedly dead in Israel’s conflict against Hamas, a top United Nations health official called the region a “death zone” Wednesday and reiterated his calls for an immediate cease-fire.

“Gaza has become a death zone,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing Wednesday.

Tedros cited the more than 29,000 Gazans who are reported to have been killed so far in the months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He also noted the recent attack on a Doctors Without Borders shelter in which staff were injured and family members were killed.

“This figure will rise the longer the war goes on and supplies [are] interrupted,” Tedros said.

International aid groups operating in the region have stated that the death toll will continue to rise even after the bombings cease, as health infrastructures in Gaza have been decimated and there are widespread reports of infectious diseases, including cholera.

Much of the disease spread has been attributed to the lack of available clean water.

“What type of world do we live when people cannot get food and water, and when people who cannot even walk are unable to receive care?” Tedros asked in the briefing.

While Israeli officials have said they are working with partners to facilitate aid into Gaza, nongovernmental organizations on the ground have reported that efforts to bring in medicine and supplies have been blocked or stymied by the Israeli military.

Earlier this week, the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which is based out of the West Bank, reported that the WHO had “successfully relocated 32 critically patients from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to other Gaza hospitals with the support of [the Palestine Red Crescent Society] and [the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs].”

“With the intensive care units no longer working, WHO helped move patients, many of whom cannot even walk,” Tedros said of the move.

Khan Younis is located in the southern part of Gaza, where many residents have relocated. It is less than 10 miles from the southernmost city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Gazans are estimated to be gathered. Israeli war officials have indicated plans to invade Rafah on Ramadan next month.