Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?

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Updated 08 July 2024
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Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?

Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?
  • WHO Regional Director for Eastern Mediterranean Dr. Hanan Bakhy described the reality facing health workers
  • Saudi physician discussed dire situation in Syria and Lebanon; funding shortages and flight of medical specialists

DUBAI: The devastation of Gaza’s health system and the magnitude and complexity of the trauma endured by the Palestinian people are difficult for aid workers to wrap their heads around, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, has said.

Appearing on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” the Saudi-born WHO official described the reality facing Palestinians and aid workers operating under Israeli bombardment in the embattled enclave.

“It is difficult for me to interact with and listen to those devastating stories, let alone … the photos and the videos that we see every day on TV,” Balkhy said.

“I was at the Rafah border crossing from the Egypt side. I was able to visit the patients that were hosted in the hospitals in Al-Arish … The stories that I’ve heard and the types of trauma that I have seen are quite significant.”

Balkhy, who took up her appointment as regional director in February this year and is the first woman to hold the position, described witnessing “maimed children and women” and “young adults with lost limbs.”

She said: “The devastation that we’re seeing, and the magnitude and complexity of trauma, is something that we will need to wrap our heads around and be able to find very creative ways to work with partners, the member states who have been very thankfully supporting us. But none of this is enough.”

Since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7 last year following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, the Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean coast has endured heavy Israeli bombardment and a fierce ground offensive, which has displaced much of the population. 




Appearing on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” the Saudi-born WHO official described the reality facing Palestinians and aid workers. (AN Photo)

The bombing raids, the collapse of civilian infrastructure including sanitation services, and chronic shortages of food, drinking water and medications have brought Gaza’s health system to its knees.

Just 33 percent of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 30 percent of its primary healthcare centers are functional in some capacity. Asked whether the health situation in Gaza is beyond saving, Balkhy said the WHO would continue to do its best to serve patients and those injured.

“The situation in Gaza has been quite devastating for all of us, especially the partners working on the ground,” she told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen. “But WHO continues to work with its partners and with whoever’s on the ground at the moment in delivering fuel, medical supplies, and other aid.”

In particular, Balkhy highlighted the important role played by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The agency came under significant financial pressure earlier this year after major Western donors suspended their funding in response to Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staff members had participated in the Oct. 7 attack.

Balkhy said UNRWA “is very important as we work with them to try to sustain what is left of the primary healthcare (system) and restore what has been significantly damaged, but also to work together with the partners to evacuate the necessary patients.”

Despite the challenges faced by the aid community, Balkhy said: “We stay, we serve, and we continue to do our best to serve the patients and the injured in Gaza.”

Compounding the health crisis in Gaza are the chronic shortages of food reaching civilians via the limited number of border crossings from Israel and from Egypt through the Rafah crossing.

Since the conflict began, Israel has limited the flow of aid permitted to enter the territory, claiming it was being commandeered by Hamas. As a result of these delays at the border, a significant proportion of the population is facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.

To add insult to injury, Balkhy said truckloads of urgently needed foodstuffs provided by aid agencies and donor nations were going rotten while awaiting clearance to enter Gaza.

“The catastrophic situation is in the numbers if you look at them,” said Balkhy. “So, 96 percent of the population of Gaza is facing acute food insecurity on a regular basis, and more than half of that population does not have any food to eat in their house, and 20 percent go for entire days and nights without any eating.

“I actually have been at the Rafah crossing, and I visited the hospitals in Al-Arish on the soil of Egypt and I’ve seen the tens or hundreds of trucks lined up to try to cross and provide the necessary aid, including food.

“Now, facing the summer months right now, it’s going to be even more difficult. Already we have information that the extreme waiting at the border and the delays (are) allowing for this food and some of this sensitive aid to go rotten or go bad, and that is really very difficult for us to manage.

“So, the situation is dire, the food catastrophe is significant. On top of (that is), of course, the lack of our ability to deliver as much health aid as we would wish.”




A Palestinian man walks along a road past damaged buildings during the Israeli military bombardment of Gaza City on July 7 amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Efforts to secure a ceasefire have been repeatedly thwarted in recent months, first by US vetoes at the UN Security Council, and later by the unwillingness of the warring parties to reach a compromise.

Although the UN Security Council has since passed a resolution calling on Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire, coupled with the Biden administration’s own peace plan, a pause in the fighting to allow an exchange of prisoners and the delivery of more aid has proved elusive.

Asked what difference a ceasefire would make to Gaza’s health crisis, Balkhy said it would allow the WHO and other aid agencies to move freely within the enclave to reach those most in need and to restore its shattered infrastructure.

“We very much welcome the Security Council resolution. Peace is the only way for us to move forward with helping the people in Gaza,” she said.

“The significant impact that has been taking place on the healthcare settings, on the health workforce, the complexities of the trauma that are taking place, requires that we are capable to freely move within Gaza, accessing the very difficult areas, even in the north, the middle and the south, to be able to have the people move back into their homes, to be able to have access to healthcare for not just the traumas.

“Remember, there are people who have chronic diseases. People are not having access to their hypertension medications, for example, their dialysis treatment, people who require a treatment for their cancers. All of these things … have been jeopardized to a very big degree.

“The benefit of a ceasefire today and a permanent peace agreement will allow us to go back and build with all of the partners on the ground and with the staff from Gaza themselves.”

International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on medical workers and infrastructure, and yet, from Ukraine to Syria and more recently in Sudan, such infrastructure has been damaged and destroyed by warring parties, drawing accusations of war crimes.

Asked whether similar destruction of health infrastructure in Gaza amounted to a war crime, Balkhy said the level of protection required under international law appears to have been lacking.

“Healthcare facilities and health workforces are protected under international humanitarian law. And, unfortunately, that has not been the case so far,” she said.

“When we talk about the amount of people that have been injured and killed during the past few months, and large numbers of them are women and children, then that question definitely comes up quite strongly.”

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, there have been regular claims from Israeli authorities that Hamas has been using a network of tunnels, command centers and weapons caches hidden under hospitals, thereby using patients and medical staff as human shields.

Asked whether WHO staff had seen any evidence to support or debunk the Israeli claims, Balkhy said: “I have not been aware of any evidence that supports that the hospitals have been used for such reasons.

“Of course, we are not the entity that has the role or the mandate to investigate this. So, the evidence, even if it existed, does not come to us and we have not seen anything that supports those claims.”

A major concern among regional governments and the wider international community is the potential for the war in Gaza to spill over into a broader conflict, dragging in vulnerable neighbors, Iran and its regional proxies, and even the US.

Lebanon is especially vulnerable, with months of cross-border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia threatening to escalate into a full-blown war. Balkhy said an escalation would be “catastrophic” for Lebanon.

“We do hope and pray that this escalation does not take place because the health systems within Lebanon and within many of the countries bordering the Occupied Palestinian Territories are already overwhelmed with what is happening,” she said.

“And at any rate, none of us would wish for further war, further destruction. It’s really not what any human being … would want to see. So, we do hope that diplomacy plays its role and the region can calm down and that this escalation does not happen.

“If it does happen, then I can tell you it will be extremely catastrophic for the fragile health systems.”

Indeed, since Lebanon plunged into a grave economic crisis in late 2019, medical workers have been leaving the country in droves in search of better opportunities. 

Likewise in Syria, following more than a decade of civil war, sanctions and isolation, compounded by the catastrophic twin earthquakes of February 2023, medical staff have been abandoning the country.

Asked what could be done to convince medical workers to remain and serve their compatriots, Balkhy said it was a matter of economics, security and dignity. 




Balkhy took up her appointment as regional director in February this year and is the first woman to hold the position. (AN Photo)

“It’s very important to understand that every individual, and this is coming from my personal perspective, every individual seeks to live a dignified, healthy life,” she said.

“So, if you have been trained as a healthcare provider and you’re not able to perform and to practice the medicine that you have learned, then it’s very difficult.

“It’s not about convincing. It’s about the economy. It’s about the lifestyle. It’s about the security and the safety for them to be able to feel that they can practice and do what they want to do when it comes to the healthcare provision.

“And that has not been secured at the moment because of the lack of the equipment, the lack of the medications and the lack of opportunities to progress in their career as healthcare providers.”

She added: “I come from the region, so I know quite well that they would love nothing more than to stay in their country. They would love nothing more than to serve their own people. 

“And that applies by the way to several other countries in the region. In Lebanon, it’s the same thing. And Palestine, it’s the same thing. The people do not want to leave their countries and their lands, but the situation that they’re in pushes them to seek a better life elsewhere.”

 


37 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in past 24 hours, health ministry says

37 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in past 24 hours, health ministry says
Updated 6 sec ago
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37 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in past 24 hours, health ministry says

37 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in past 24 hours, health ministry says
  • Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah started swapping fire as the Gaza war worsened

BEIRUT: Thirty seven people were killed and 151 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in the past 24 hours, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement early on Friday

Among the dead were nine residents of an apartment in the Lebanese capital, according to ministry.

Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September, but has rarely struck in the heart of Beirut.

There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit the building close to the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defense unit said seven of its members were killed.
Israel is also conducting a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.

Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

 

 

 


UN peacekeepers in Lebanon stay put, despite Israel asking them to move

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon stay put, despite Israel asking them to move
Updated 21 min 41 sec ago
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UN peacekeepers in Lebanon stay put, despite Israel asking them to move

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon stay put, despite Israel asking them to move
  • UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix: “The parties have an obligation to respect the safety of and security of peacekeepers, and I want to insist on that”
  • UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, operates between the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south

UNITED NATIONS: United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon remain in place — despite Israel asking them to move — and provide the only communications link between the countries’ militaries, the UN peacekeeping chief said on Thursday.
“Peacekeepers continue to do their best to implement their Security Council mandate in obviously very difficult conditions,” UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told reporters, adding that contingency plans were ready for both good and bad outcomes.
The mission, known as UNIFIL, is mandated by the Security Council to help the Lebanese army keep the area free of weapons and armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state. That has sparked friction with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which effectively controls southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military asked UN peacekeepers earlier this week to prepare to relocate more than 5 km (3 miles) from the border between Israel and Lebanon — known as the Blue Line — “as soon as possible, in order to maintain your safety,” according to an excerpt from the message, seen by Reuters.
“The peacekeepers are currently staying in their position, all of them,” Lacroix told reporters. “The parties have an obligation to respect the safety of and security of peacekeepers, and I want to insist on that.”

Lacroix said UNIFIL was continuing to liaise with both countries, describing the mission as “the only channel of communication” between them. The mission was working to protect civilians and support the safe movement of civilians and delivery of humanitarian aid.
The UN peacekeepers operate between the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south. The mission has more than 10,000 troops from 50 countries and about 800 civilian staff, according to its website.
Israel’s military told residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday as it pressed on with its cross-border incursion and struck Hezbollah targets in a suburb of Beirut.


Palestinian health ministry says 16 killed in Israeli strike on West Bank

Palestinian health ministry says 16 killed in Israeli strike on West Bank
Updated 03 October 2024
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Palestinian health ministry says 16 killed in Israeli strike on West Bank

Palestinian health ministry says 16 killed in Israeli strike on West Bank

RAMALLAH: At least 16 people were killed in the West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late Thursday, following an Israeli air strike in the area.
“Sixteen martyrs following the bombing of the Tulkarm camp by the occupation,” the Palestinian health ministry said on its Telegram account.
The Israeli army confirmed the strike on the town in the northern West Bank, describing it as a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet internal security service and the air force, according to a brief statement by the military.
Reached by telephone, camp official Faisal Salama told AFP that the attack had been carried out by an F-16 fighter.
A resident from the area said the Israeli plane had “hit a cafeteria in a three-story building.”
“There are many victims in the hospital,” the resident added, saying the toll would likely rise.
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza which began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Since the Hamas attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 699 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 24 Israelis, including members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian militant attacks during the same period, Israeli officials say.
Major Israeli operations in the West Bank are sometimes occurring “at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said last month.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities, but the current raids as well as comments by Israeli officials mark an escalation, residents say.


G7 voices ‘deep concern’ over ‘deteriorating situation’ in Mideast

G7 voices ‘deep concern’ over ‘deteriorating situation’ in Mideast
Updated 03 October 2024
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G7 voices ‘deep concern’ over ‘deteriorating situation’ in Mideast

G7 voices ‘deep concern’ over ‘deteriorating situation’ in Mideast

LONDON: Leaders of the G7 countries on Thursday voiced concern over the “deteriorating situation” in the Middle East while warning against further “uncontrollable escalation” in the region.

G7 leaders “express deep concern over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s direct military attack against Israel,” they said in a statement.

They warned that the “dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks fueling uncontrollable escalation... which is in no one’s interest.”

The statement said G7 leaders had discussed “coordinated efforts and actions” to avoid further escalation of conflict in the region, without specifying details.

“We also reiterate our call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the unconditional release of all hostages, a significant and sustained increase in the flow of humanitarian assistance, and an end to the conflict,” it said.


Yazidi woman, 21, freed from Gaza in US-led operation

Yazidi woman, 21, freed from Gaza in US-led operation
Updated 03 October 2024
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Yazidi woman, 21, freed from Gaza in US-led operation

Yazidi woman, 21, freed from Gaza in US-led operation
  • She ‘was in good physical condition but was traumatized by dire humanitarian situation in Gaza’

A 21-year-old woman kidnapped by Daesh in Iraq more than a decade ago was freed from Gaza this week in an operation led by the US and involving Jordan and the Baghdad government, Iraqi and US officials said.

The woman is a member of the ancient Yazidi religious minority mostly found in Iraq and Syria, which saw more than 5,000 members killed and thousands more kidnapped in a 2014 campaign that the UN has said constituted genocide.

She was freed after more than four months of efforts that involved several attempts that failed due to the difficult security situation resulting from Israel’s offensive in Gaza, said Silwan Sinjaree, chief of staff of Iraq’s foreign minister.

Officials did not provide details of how she was eventually freed, and Jordanian and US Embassy officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters could not reach the woman directly for comment.

A State Department spokesperson said the US on Oct. 1 “helped to safely evacuate from Gaza, a young Yezidi woman to be reunited with her family in Iraq.”

The spokesperson said she was kidnapped from her home in Iraq, aged 11, and sold and trafficked to Gaza.  Her captor was recently killed, allowing her to escape and seek repatriation, the spokesperson said.

Sinjaree said she was in good physical condition but was traumatized by her time in captivity and by the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. 

She had since been reunited with family in northern Iraq, he added.

The Yazidi nightmare
Ten years after the genocide, their torment continues
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More than 6,000 Yazidis were captured by Daesh from the native Sinjar region in Iraq in 2014, with many sold into sexual slavery or trained as child soldiers and taken across borders, including to Turkiye and Syria.

Over the years, more than 3,500 have been rescued or freed, according to Iraqi authorities, with some 2,600 still missing.

Many are feared dead but Yazidi activists say they believe hundreds are still alive.