THE WHO (World Health Organisation) has joined the United Nations in urging Israel to immediately rescind orders for the imminent invasion of Gaza which has already been bombed for a week on a daily basis, with thousands of Gazans killed.
Israel is on the brink of a mass slaughter of Gazans by bombs and tank fire, with Gaza no doubt due to be incorporated into a Greater Israel, based on a mountain of Palestinian corpses.
The WHO states that currently, ‘With ongoing airstrikes and closed borders, civilians have no safe place to go. Almost half of the population of Gaza is under 18 years of age. With dwindling supplies of safe food, clean water, health services, and without adequate shelter, children and adults, including the elderly, will all be at heightened risk of disease.
‘The Palestinian Ministry of Health has informed WHO that it is impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients without endangering their lives. Vulnerable patients include those who are critically injured or dependent on life support. Moving them amid hostilities puts their lives at immediate risk.’
Israel is preparing to slaughter thousands of Gazans after destroying their hospitals, to try to defeat Hamas. The WHO states that already: ‘The two Ministry of Health hospitals in the North of Gaza that continue to be operational, have greatly exceeded their combined 760-bed capacity with severe overcrowding.
‘Of the thousands of patients with injuries and other conditions receiving care in hospitals, there are hundreds that are severely wounded and over 100 who require critical care. These are the sickest of the sick. Many thousands more, also with wounds or other health needs, cannot access any kind of care.
‘Any attempt to move them is akin to murder.’
Currently, the four Ministry of Health hospitals in the south of Gaza are already at or beyond capacity, and ‘lack the critical care capacity and supplies needed to treat additional patients’.
WHO has prepared medical supplies in its logistics hub in Dubai and is ready to deliver them to Areesh, Egypt – just 20 minutes from Rafah – as soon as a landing permit is received. The supplies would be enough to care for more than 300,000 patients with a range of wounds and diseases.
WHO asks for the immediate establishment of a humanitarian corridor for their onward, safe delivery to health care facilities in Gaza, including via Rafah.
WHO has been denied and treated with contempt as Israel continues to bomb and kill hundreds of Gazans on a daily basis. Already, the World Health Organisation says there has been an extermination of entire Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip as a result of the incessant Israeli air strikes against the besieged coastal enclave over the past few days.
WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Saturday appealed to the international community to open up the Gaza border crossings and allow the entry of aid supplies into the territory.
Israel has responded with more bombings, with an invasion into Gaza imminent. The workers and youth of Gaza face an invasion that is backed by the USA and Britain. The Gaza Health Ministry said that currently 2,329 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 9,714 others injured by Israeli strikes.
This comes after more than 420,000 people have been displaced within the Gaza Strip. A total of 270,374 out of 423,378 internally displaced people are located in UN shelters and schools.
Last Saturday, 170,000 workers and youth marched through London calling for the victory of the Hamas Palestinian national liberation movement and the destruction of the Israeli state.
However, the TUC trade union leaders are just standing by and doing nothing to assist the Palestinians and block the Tory plans to help Israel annex Gaza.
With the next mass demonstration due this Saturday the TUC must be told that thousands will be marching in the direction of its offices and will not leave until the TUC calls a general strike to support the Palestinians and to bring down the Tory government replacing it with a workers government and socialism.
This is the way to aid Palestine. Bring down the Tories and smash up the US-UK-Israel alliance which is seeking the extermination of the Palestinians.