WHO says Gaza health system in Gaza ‘more than on its knees’

People in the Gaza Strip are risking their lives to find food, water and other supplies such is the level of hunger and despair amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

“The system in Gaza is on its knees, it’s more than on its knees,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier tells reporters in Geneva. “All the lifelines in Gaza have more or less been cut.”

Lindmeier says this had created a “desperate situation,” as seen Thursday, when dozens of Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in northern Gaza were killed in a chaotic stampede.

Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded the aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over, but Hamas has accused the IDF of shooting at the Palestinians waiting for the aid delivery.

“People are so desperate for food, for fresh water, for any supplies that they risk their lives in getting any food, any supplies to support their children, to support themselves,” Lindmeier says.

While aid is reaching southern parts of the Gaza Strip, it is too slow to avert a hunger crisis even there. Aid barely makes it to northern areas that are further from the main border crossing and only accessible through more active battle fronts, the WHO spokesman says.

Israel has said the failure to get enough aid into Gaza to meet humanitarian needs is due to UN distribution failures.