“Since this morning’s reports of a raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, we have lost contact with the staff there,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X.
“This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people housed there,” he added.
Northern Gaza has been under intense military operation with thousands of civilians said to be cut off from humanitarian aid and protection amid dwindling food and other necessities.
Tedros said Kamal Adwan Hospital “has been overcrowded with close to 200 patients – a constant stream of horrific trauma cases” and hundreds of displaced people are also seeking shelter there.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, described the reports as “very worrying”.
Medical aid mission
The raid came a day after WHO and partners reached Kamal Adwan Hospital amid ongoing hostilities in the north.
Dr Peeperkorn was on the “complex mission” which lasted more than 20 hours, he said, speaking from Deir Al-Balah to journalists attending the bi-weekly UN humanitarian briefing in Geneva.
The team transferred 23 patients and 26 caregivers south to Al-Shifa Hospital, located in Gaza City.
They also provided 10,000 liters of fuel, 180 units of blood and trauma surgery and alcohol supplies to cover 1,600 procedures for Kamal Adwan.
Al-Shifa also received laboratory supplies, anesthesia, medicine and antibiotics were also delivered to Al-Shifa Hospital to meet the health needs of 6,000 people.
Patients are transferred between hospitals as part of a two-day mission amid hostilities and access restrictions in Gaza.
Hospital staff ‘completely overwhelmed’
Dr. Peeperkorn gave an eyewitness account of what he had seen.
At a checkpoint close to Kamal Adwan, there were “thousands of women and children leaving the area, walking, limping, with their few belongings towards Salah al-Din and indeed towards Gaza City,” he said.
“We saw very few men or young boys,” he continued. “We saw men being screened.”
At Kamal Adwan, the team saw “chaos and mayhem,” he said, noting that during his last visit on Oct. 21 and 22, 75 to 100 patients were at the facility.
“Now there were probably more than 200 patients. The ER was overcrowded and we saw several patients being brought in … horrible trauma patients.”
Meanwhile, staff are “completely overwhelmed” and “also severely underequipped to deal with it.”
Dr. Peeperkorn noted that Kamal Adwan is one of two hospitals in the north that the WHO defined as being “minimum functional”. He understood that the other facility, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, is very isolated and barely functioning.
The polio campaign has stopped
The WHO official also updated journalists on the massive UN-run polio campaign in Gaza, which was suspended in the north this week.
Children due to be vaccinated with a second dose of the new oral polio vaccine type 2 after a first round completed last month.
He said that to interrupt transmission of the poliovirus, “at least 90 percent of all children in all communities and neighborhoods must be vaccinated”.
The campaign has already reached around 452,000 children in the center and south, which he called a “tremendous achievement”.
The North is “the last round”, but escalating violence, intense bombardment, eviction orders and a lack of safe humanitarian breaks have forced the campaign to be delayed.
“We also want to cover these 119,000 children in the north, as we did in the first round,” said Dr. Peeperkorn and emphasized the need for “access to all children, wherever they are, to ensure that you get to this 90 percent coverage”.
He insisted that “we are almost there”, adding that “we still have high hopes that we can complete this campaign.”
The humanitarian situation is worsening
Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Aid, OCHA, said the humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza is rapidly worsening and there is an extreme shortage of essential items.
Furthermore, most attempts to deliver critical aid continue to be denied or impeded, with the Israeli authorities once again refusing permission for essential food and water supplies to be delivered to Jabalya that day.
OCHA warned that intense hostilities continue across the entire Gaza Strip, including the south.
Overnight, an Israeli raid in several neighborhoods of Khan Younis left dozens dead and many more wounded, including several women and children.
During the operation, families sought safety in An Nasser hospital, a UN-run school and the Al Mawasi area, where most returned home after Israeli forces withdrew.
“Reports indicate extensive damage to homes, leaving people in urgent need of tents, tarps to cover damaged shelters, hot meals and clean water,” the agency said.
Regarding the West Bank, OCHA reported that this month alone, more than 100 incidents linked to Israeli settlers have resulted in Palestinian casualties and property damage.
Overall, there were about 180 settler-related incidents in nearly 90 Palestinian communities, with more than half involving the olive harvest season.
