Israel is so indiscriminate in launching attacks on Hamas positions that one child is killed every ten minutes as a result, says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Gaza’s 18 hospitals and two-thirds of primary health care centres are not functioning, and those units that remain in working order are doing above and beyond.
Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying. Morgues overflowing. Surgery without anesthesia. Tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals.
Israeli forces responded to the Hamas attack on 7 October by imposing a blockade on Gaza, with a population of 2.3 million, cutting off essential medical supplies, fuel, water and food.
The World Health Organization has confirmed more than 250 attacks on health facilities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The United States is working to try to get fuel to hospitals in Gaza, said Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood.
The Security Council observed a minute of silence for the civilians killed in Gaza, including more than 100 people who worked for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“The sound of gunfire and shells whistling through the air, the smell of smoke after they struck, tracer bullets in the night sky, the fear, the pain, the loss – these things have stayed with me throughout my life,” he said, recalling growing up during the war in Ethiopia, and said he realised what the children of Gaza must be going through.
On 7 October, Israel launched a continuous military campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, 3,027 women and 678 elderly, and wounding more than 27,490.
