GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The health ministry in Gaza said on Friday that the Israeli occupation army blocked a World Health Organization (WHO) aid convoy and top UN officials from reaching the besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
In a statement, the ministry said that the convoy, which consists of two trucks carrying food, water and fuel, had been stopped by the Israeli army on the road for several hours, while bulldozers dug holes in front of and behind the convoy.
There was no information if the Israeli army released the convoy later and allowed it to go back or reach the hospital.
In this regard, Palestinian minister of health Mai Kayla accused the Israeli army of committing a genocidal crime against the remaining displaced civilians, patients and medical staff at the Nasser Hospital.
Kayla warned that there would be a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip if the hospital stopped providing medical services, describing the facility as the backbone of the health system in the war-torn territory.
For its part, WHO described the reports emerging from the Nasser hospital as “deeply alarming” and expressed its concern over the safety of the patients, health workers, and civilians sheltering at the facility.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told journalists at a press briefing in Geneva that the UN health body was trying to gain urgent access to the hospital.
“We really need to get there to bring fuel so [the] hospital can continue to function and those patients who are still there can continue to receive medical care,” he said, also stressing the need to assess the conditions of patients and for their safe referral to other facilities.
“We have been saying all this time…that patients, health workers and civilians who are seeking refuge in hospitals deserve safety and not a burial in those places of healing,” he added.
