WHO, KSrelief sign new agreement to support over one million people in Gaza
6 February 2024, Cairo, Egypt – A US$ 10 million agreement signed today by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief) will provide more than one million people in Gaza with access to emergency life-saving health services.
“The collaboration between WHO and KSrelief signifies a strategic, coordinated response to addressing urgent health needs in Gaza,” said Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “KSrelief’s generous commitment will enable WHO to continue bolstering the health system, ensuring that people displaced by ongoing violence have access to lifesaving health care.”
The project, which will be implemented over a 12-month period, will support 30 primary health care centers and 10 hospitals and ambulances across Gaza with essential medicines, medical supplies and disposables, and fuel. Approximately one million internally displaced people and those living within the catchment area of the targeted health facilities stand to benefit from this project.
Recent hostilities in Gaza have strained the health system and exacerbated challenges such as shortages in essential services, clean water, food, and fuel. In just four months, almost 28,000 people have been killed, and almost 67,000 people injured. More than 1.7 million people have been displaced, the majority living in overcrowded shelters. Ambulance access is hindered, disease surveillance disrupted, and inadequate water and sanitation have increased the spread of infectious disease outbreaks.
“KSrelief is committed to alleviating the suffering of people affected by emergencies across the Region. The deterioration of the humanitarian and health situation in Gaza has reached unprecedented levels,” said Dr Abdullah Al Rabeeah, KSrelief Supervisor General. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, represented by KSrelief, will continue to support WHO in its tireless efforts to help people in need of urgent health services in Gaza.” Representing KSrelief at the signing event with WHO were Eng. Ahmed Albaiz, Assistant Supervisor of KSrelief’s General Operations and Programmes, and Dr Abdullah Al Moallem, Director of KSrelief’s Health Department.
WHO’s operational plan for Gaza focuses on sustaining essential health services, supporting hospitals and primary health centers through medical supplies, coordinating deployment of emergency medical teams, establishing temporary field hospitals, strengthening referral pathways, and supporting public health surveillance, disease prevention and control. Aligned with the United Nations Flash Appeal, the plan targets priority areas of the Health and Nutrition component. Immediate attention is essential for procuring and distributing essential health supplies to address the crisis in Gaza.
As Health Cluster Lead Agency, WHO collaborates with partners, including health authorities and UNRWA, to maintain health services through effective supply chain management. Leveraging established systems, WHO facilitates the procurement, storage, and delivery of medical supplies to vulnerable communities.
“Despite a severely shrinking space for the humanitarian and health response in Gaza, WHO and partners remain committed to reaching all people with the aid they desperately need,” added Dr Balkhy. “Ultimately, what is needed is sustained access into and across the Strip for the urgent delivery of aid, and an end to the hostilities, so that together with all people in Gaza, we can embark on the long road to wellbeing and recovery.”
WHO and KSrelief have a long-standing partnership responding to crises in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Region. In 2022-23, WHO implemented KSrelief-funded projects in three emergency-affected countries (Yemen, Iraq, and Somalia) with contributions of over US$ 26 million.
WHO delivers health supplies to Al-Shifa Hospital, appeals for continued access to address urgent needs in north Gaza
17 December 2023 — WHO staff participated in a joint UN mission to Al-Shifa Hospital in north Gaza on 16 December to deliver health supplies and assess the situation in the facility. Partners on today’s mission included OCHA, UNDSS, and UNMAS. The team delivered medicines and surgical supplies, orthopedic surgery equipment, and anesthesia materials and drugs to the hospital.
Al-Shifa Hospital, currently minimally functional, needs to urgently resume at least basic operations to continue serving the thousands in need of lifesaving health care.
Once the most important and largest referral hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa now houses only a handful of doctors and a few nurses, together with 70 volunteers, working under what WHO staff described as “unbelievably challenging circumstances,” and calling it a “hospital in need of resuscitation.” The operating theatres and other major services remain nonfunctional due to lack of fuel, oxygen, specialized medical staff, and supplies. The hospital is only able to provide basic trauma stabilization, has no blood for transfusion, and hardly any staff to care for the constant flow of patients. Dialysis is being provided to approximately 30 patients a day, with the dialysis machines operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using a small generator.
The team described the emergency department as a “bloodbath”, with hundreds of injured patients inside, and new patients arriving every minute. Patients with trauma injuries were being sutured on the floor, and limited to no pain management is available at the hospital. WHO staff said that the emergency department is so full that care must be exercised to not step on patients on the floor. Critical patients are being transferred to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital for surgeries.
Tens of thousands of displaced people are using the hospital building and grounds for shelter. A multi-pronged humanitarian response is needed to provide them with food, water and shelter.
Many of them asked our team to tell the world what is happening in the hope that their suffering might soon be eased. Al-Shifa Hospital continues to experience a severe shortage of food and safe water for health workers, patients, and displaced people. This reflects grave and growing concerns around persistent hunger across the Gaza Strip, and the consequences of malnutrition on people’s health and susceptibility to infectious diseases.
WHO is committed to strengthening Al-Shifa Hospital in the coming weeks, so that it can resume at least basic functionality and continue to provide the lifesaving services that are needed at this critical time. Up to 20 operating theatres in the hospital, as well as post-operative care services, can be activated if provided with regular supplies of fuel, oxygen, medicines, food, and water. Substantial additional specialized medical, nursing and support staff, including emergency medical teams are also urgently needed.
Currently, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital remains the only partially functional hospital in north Gaza along with three minimally functional hospitals – Al-Shifa, Al Awda and Al Sahaba Medical Complex - down from 24 before the conflict. WHO is also gravely concerned at the unfolding situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital and is gathering information urgently.
As hostilities continue and health needs across the Gaza Strip increase, Al-Shifa Hospital, a cornerstone of Gaza’s health system, must be urgently restored so that it can serve a besieged people trapped in a cycle of death, destruction, hunger, and disease.
Lethal combination of hunger and disease to lead to more deaths in Gaza
21 December 2023 – Hunger is ravaging Gaza, and this is expected to increase illness across the Strip, most acutely among children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and older people.
In new estimates released today, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) global partnership, which includes WHO, said Gaza is facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” with the risk of famine “increasing each day.”
An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food and high levels of malnutrition. At least 1 in 4 households are facing “catastrophic conditions”: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.
On recent missions to north Gaza, WHO staff say that every single person they spoke to in Gaza is hungry. Wherever they went, including hospitals and emergency wards, people asked them for food. “We move around Gaza delivering medical supplies and people rush to our trucks hoping it’s food,” they said, calling it “an indicator of the desperation.”
Infectious diseases are thriving
Gaza is already experiencing soaring rates of infectious diseases. Over 100 000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported since mid-October. Half of these are among young children under the age of 5 years, case numbers that are 25 times what was reported before the conflict.
Over 150 000 cases of upper respiratory infection, and numerous cases of meningitis, skin rashes, scabies, lice and chickenpox have been reported. Hepatitis is also suspected as many people present with the tell-tale signs of jaundice.
While a healthy body can more easily fight off these diseases, a wasted and weakened body will struggle. Hunger weakens the body’s defences and opens the door to disease.
Malnutrition increases the risk of children dying from illnesses like diarrhoea, pneumonia and measles, especially in a setting where they lack access to life-saving health services.
Even if the child survives, wasting can have life-long impacts as it stunts growth and impairs cognitive development.
Breastfeeding mothers are also at high risk of malnutrition. From 0-6 months of age, a mother’s milk is the best and safest food a baby can get. This protects the child from nutritional deficiencies and catching deadly diseases such as diarrhoea, especially when access to safe drinking water is extremely limited.
Mental health issues, on the rise across the population in Gaza, including among women, could further impact breastfeeding rates.
Lack of sanitation and hygiene, and a collapsing health system, add to the toxic mix
Over 1.9 million people have been displaced from their homes, of whom over 1.4 million are staying in overcrowded shelters. These conditions are ripe for a continued rise in infectious diseases. In Gaza today, on average, there is only one shower for every 4500 people and one toilet for every 220. Clean water remains scarce and there are rising levels of outdoor defecation. These conditions make the spread of infectious diseases inevitable.
Tragically, access to health services across Gaza has plumeted as the war continues to degrade the health system. With the health system on its knees, those facing the deadly combination of hunger and disease are left with few options.
The people of Gaza, who have already suffered enough, now face death from starvation and diseases that could be easily treated with a functioning health system. This must stop. Food and other aid must flow in far greater amounts. WHO reiterates its call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
WHO teams deliver supplies to hospitals in Northern and Southern Gaza
27 December 2023 – Gaza: World Health Organization teams have undertaken high-risk missions to deliver supplies, with partners, to hospitals in Northern and Southern Gaza witnessing intense hostilities in their vicinity, high patient loads and overcrowding caused by people displaced by the conflict seeking refuge.
“Today I repeat my call on the international community to take urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril facing the population of Gaza and jeopardizing the ability of humanitarian workers to help people with terrible injuries, acute hunger, and at severe risk of disease,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
In WHO’s latest high-risk mission, teams visited on Tuesday 26 December two hospitals - Al-Shifa in the north and Al-Amal Palestine Red Crescent Society in the south – to deliver supplies and assess needs on the ground.
Both hospitals also serve as shelters for displaced people seeking relative safety. At Al-Shifa Hospital, a reported 50 000 people are sheltering, while in Al-Amal there are 14 000.
At Al-Shifa, WHO delivered fuel to keep essential health services running. With UNICEF, WHO also delivered medical supplies for the hospital. And in support of NGO partner, the World Central Kitchen, delivered materials to support a kitchen at Al-Shifa. Medical supplies were also delivered to the Gaza Central Drug Store, which will act as a medical supply hub to deliver to other hospitals, and will be supported by WHO and partners.
At Al-Amal, colleagues saw the aftermath of recent strikes that disabled the hospital’s radio tower and impacted the central ambulance dispatch system for the entire Khan Younis area affecting more than 1.5 million people. Of the 9 ambulances the hospital once had, only 5 remain functioning. WHO staff reported finding it impossible to walk inside the hospital without stepping over patients and those seeking refuge. There are only few functioning toilets available in the hospital and adjacent community buildings and PRCS training centres for the people taking refuge there, staff and hospital patients.
While transiting across Gaza, WHO staff witnessed tens of thousands of people fleeing heavy strikes in the Khan Younis and Middle Area, on foot, riding on donkeys, or in cars. Make-shift shelters were being built along the road.
“WHO is extremely concerned this fresh displacement of people will further strain health facilities in the south, which are already struggling to meet the population’s immense needs,” said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in WHO's office for the West Bank and Gaza. “This forced mass movement of people will also lead to more overcrowding, increased risk of infectious diseases, and make it even harder to deliver humanitarian aid.”
According to the latest WHO assessments, Gaza has 13 partially functioning hospitals, 2 minimally functioning ones, and 21 that are not functioning at all.
Among these is Nasser Medical Complex, which is the most important referral hospital in Southern Gaza, and is partially functioning. Recent reports of residential areas being ordered to evacuate around the hospital are extremely concerning.
“When military activities intensify near the hospital, ambulances, patients, staff, and WHO and partners will be unable to reach the complex, and this key hospital will quickly become barely functional,” said Dr Peeperkorn. “This scenario was witnessed all too often in the North. Gaza can not afford to lose any more hospitals. WHO is working to strengthen and expand the existing struggling health system.”
WHO staff also reported Tuesday that the need for food continues to be acute across the Gaza Strip. Hungry people again stopped our convoys today in the hope of finding food.
WHO’s ability to supply medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to hospitals is being increasingly constrained by the hunger and desperation of people en route to, and within, hospitals we reach.
Dr Tedros said: “The safety of our staff and continuity of operations depends on more food arriving in all of Gaza, immediately. My own colleagues are also being directly and personally affected by the conflict, just like virtually everyone in Gaza. I continue to receive heartbreaking news of the loss of our Gaza staffers’ family members.”
“The recent United Nations Security Council resolution appeared to provide hope of an improvement in humanitarian aid distribution within Gaza,” Dr Tedros added. “However, based on WHO eyewitness accounts on the ground, the resolution is tragically yet to have an impact. What we urgently need, right now, is a ceasefire to spare civilians from further violence and begin the long road towards reconstruction and peace.”