Social Justice & Action
Gaza’s hospitals are now “empty shells” says WHO
Gaza’s healthcare system has been systematically dismantled, says the UN’s health organisation.
A WHO-led multi-agency mission in April found that, like most hospitals in the north of Gaza, “Al-Shifa Hospital – once the largest and most important referral hospital in Gaza – is now an empty shell” after the latest siege by the Israeli army.
“No patients remain at the facility. Most of the buildings are extensively damaged or destroyed and the majority of equipment is unusable or reduced to ashes,” it said.
The WHO team said the scale of devastation has left the facility completely non-functional, further reducing access to life-saving health care in Gaza.
“Restoring even minimal functionality in the short term seems implausible,” it said.
The hospital’s emergency department, surgical, and maternity ward buildings were extensively damaged due to explosives and fire. At least 115 beds in what once was the
emergency department were burned and 14 incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) destroyed, among other assets.
The WHO mission found that “numerous shallow graves have been dug just outside the emergency department, and the administrative and surgical buildings”.
“In the same area, many dead bodies were partially buried with their limbs visible,” it said.
WHO said that prior to its mission, their efforts to reach the hospital to medically evacuate patients and staff, and conduct an assessment, were repeatedly denied, delayed or impeded.