The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the health sector in the Gaza Strip is in a critical condition due to the ongoing Israeli military offensive.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, UNRWA reported that 45% of essential medical supplies are already out of stock, and nearly a quarter of the remaining supplies could run out within the next six weeks if the situation continues.
The agency added that stocks of vital medicines and blood products are nearly depleted, while the needs on the ground remain urgent and continue to grow.
Since March 2, the Israeli military has maintained a closure of Gaza’s border crossings, blocking the entry of food, humanitarian relief, medical supplies, and commercial goods. This has led to a significant worsening of the humanitarian crisis in the Strip.
Israeli troops have killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded hundreds as they sought aid in Gaza on Tuesday, firing at them with tank shells, machine guns and drones.
Those casualties were among the 89 Palestinians killed in attacks across the besieged enclave since dawn on Tuesday.
Israeli soldiers fired at the desperate crowds of aid seekers as they gathered along the main eastern road in the southern city of Khan Younis.
It was the latest in a sustained wave of carnage since the Israel- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) launched operations to distribute food in the territory three weeks ago.
The death toll rose as many of the injured were in a critical condition, according to medics at Nasser Hospital, where the casualties were being treated.
Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal added that more than 200 people were injured, although reports concerning the number of casualties varied.
‘Israeli drones fired at the citizens. Some minutes later, Israeli tanks fired several shells at the citizens, which led to a large number of martyrs and wounded,’ the spokesman said, noting that the crowd had assembled in the hope of receiving flour.
Israeli tanks, heavy machine guns, and drone strikes were ‘raining down’ on crowds, according to eyewitnesses.
The death toll of more than 70 people made Tuesday the deadliest day around the GHF sites so far.
Previously, that grim record was set on Monday, when 38 people were killed, mostly in the Rafah area south of Khan Younis.
Reports indicated more than 300 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded while trying to collect aid from the GHF since it launched operations in Gaza on May 26.
The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for accountability after the latest GHF site killings.
His deputy spokesman, in comments made at the UN headquarters in New York, said: ‘The Secretary General condemns the loss of lives and injuries of civilians in Gaza, where once again are being shot at while seeking food.
‘It is unacceptable,’ added Farhan Haq. ‘As of yesterday, 338 people have been killed and more than 2,800 injured while trying to access food, food near distribution sites.’
‘Dozens of civilians, including children, were killed, and no one could help or save lives,’ survivor Saeed Abu Liba, 38, said.
Yousef Nofal, who called the event a ‘massacre’, said he saw many people lying motionless and bleeding on the ground. The soldiers continued to fire on people as they fled, he said.
‘I survived by a miracle,’ said Mohammed Abu Qeshfa, who mentioned both heavy gunfire and tank shelling.
Many victims were unidentifiable because they had been shredded to pieces in the attack.
Palestinians injured by Israeli fire receive care at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.
The GHF began distributing a trickle of food aid in Gaza at the end of May after Israel partially lifted a nearly three-month total blockade on food, medicines and other essential items, leading to fears of famine for the population of 2.3 million.
No other aid has been allowed in by Israel, which in effect has kept the punishing blockade in place.
The United Nations and major humanitarian groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, citing concerns that it prioritises Israeli military objectives over humanitarian needs and bypasses organisations with decades of experience in providing food and medicine at hundreds of locations to the entire population of Gaza.
After previous shootings, which have been a near-daily occurrence since the aid centres opened, the military has claimed its soldiers had fired warning shots at what it called suspects approaching their positions, although it did not say whether those shots struck anyone.
The Israeli occupation army continued, on Wednesday, to carry out deadly attacks on different areas of the Gaza Strip, killing and injuring dozens of civilians.
According to local media sources, Israeli forces also continued to detonate and bomb more homes and displace families in the Gaza Strip, further deepening the dire humanitarian crisis as the population grapples with worsening famine.
Since dawn on Wednesday, at least 47 Palestinian civilians, including aid seekers, were killed in Israeli attacks on different areas of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli attacks continued across the Gaza Strip, including an Israeli attack on aid seekers that killed three of them and injured 20 others near a US-backed distribution point in Rafah, southern Gaza.
An Israeli airstrike targeted a house near the Ali Mosque in Gaza City’s az-Zeitoun neighbourhood, massacring eight people and injuring others.
Another strike on a house belonging to the family of al-Ghamri in al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed six people and injured several others.
The Israeli army also attacked hungry civilians waiting for aid on Salahuddin road in central Gaza, killing 11 of them and injuring over 100 others.
Five civilians were killed and others were injured when the Israeli army targeted tents sheltering displaced families in al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, south of Gaza.
Meanwhile, many Gazans were pronounced dead after they succumbed to injuries they sustained in recent attacks.
The Israeli army also launched attacks on other areas of the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding more civilians, including children and women.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has pleaded for fuel supplies to be allowed into the Gaza Strip to keep its remaining hospitals running, warning the Palestinian territory’s health system reached a ‘breaking point.’
‘For over 100 days, no fuel has entered Gaza and attempts to retrieve stocks from evacuation zones have been denied (by Israel),’ Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Tuesday.
‘Combined with critical supply shortages, this is pushing the health system closer to the brink of collapse,’ Peeperkorn added.
Peeperkorn said only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were currently minimally to partially functional.
They have a total of around 1,500 beds – around 45 per cent fewer than before the conflict began.
He said all hospitals and primary health centres in north Gaza were currently out of service.
In Rafah in southern Gaza, health services are provided through the Red Cross field hospital and two partially-functioning medical points.
Speaking from Occupied Jerusalem, he said the 17 partially functioning hospitals and seven field hospitals are barely running on a minimum amount of daily fuel and ‘will soon have none left’.
‘Without fuel, all levels of care will cease, leading to more preventable deaths and suffering,’ Peeperkorn warned.
Hospitals were already switching between generators and batteries to power ventilators, dialysis machines and incubators, he said, and without fuel, ambulances cannot run and supplies cannot be delivered to hospitals.
The Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has announced that fixed-line communication and internet services have been cut off again in central and southern Gaza, due to a new outage on one of the main routes caused by the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Strip.
In a press statement, the Authority said it is closely monitoring the situation with the telecommunications companies providing the service, and is working on evaluating the technical situation continuously in order to support efforts aimed at restoring services as soon as possible.
Last week, internet and landline services were completely cut off in Gaza for nearly five days.
Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza on October 7, 2023, communication and internet services have been disrupted multiple times in the entire Strip or in large parts of it, either due to intense Israeli bombardment or the depletion of fuel required to operate power generators.
