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tedros adhanom ghebreyesus
With Epidemic 'Outpacing' Response, WHO Chief Warns Ebola Outbreak Will 'Get Worse Before It Gets Better'
"The delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic."
May 25, 2026
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Monday that the swiftly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda "will get worse before it gets better," as a deadly delay in detecting infections has responders to the epidemic "playing catch-up."
"The outbreak is spreading rapidly," Tedros said during a virtual ministerial meeting on the matter. "So far, 101 cases have been confirmed in DRC, with 10 confirmed deaths. But we know the epidemic in DRC is much larger. There are now more than 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths."
"Countries bordering DRC are at especially high risk and should take immediate action," he asserted. "In Uganda, there are five confirmed cases and one death."
Tedros pointed out that "there are several aspects of this outbreak that make it especially challenging."
"First, the delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic," he said. "We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us."
"Second, as you know, the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu are highly insecure, with intensified fighting in recent months, causing more than 100,000 people to be newly displaced," the WHO chief continued. "There is also significant distrust of outside authorities among the local population. In the past week, there have been two security incidents at health facilities."
"WHO is fully committed to working under the leadership of the governments of DRC and Uganda, side by side with Africa [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and all other partners," Tedros added. "We will not rest until we bring this outbreak under control."
Ebola—which typically kills between 25% and 90% of infected people, depending upon the strain of the virus and quality of available medical care—causes widespread and often catastrophic damage to the body’s blood vessels, immune system, and organs.
Critics say US President Donald Trump's ideologically driven decision to withdraw the US from the WHO, his administration's dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and reduced funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global public health efforts have adversely affected the response to the current Ebola epidemic, compared with 2014 and 2019 outbreaks.
After US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the WHO was "a little late" in identifying new Ebola infections, Tedros retorted that "we don’t replace the country’s work, we only support them," and suggested that Rubio's comments could be rooted in "a lack of understanding" of the agency and countries' responsibilities.
While Rubio said that “our number-one objective on Ebola, before anything else... has to be, we can’t have it affect the United States,” public health experts warn that Trump administration actions could make it more likely that the virus will make its way to the country.
There is currently no confirmed CDC director, Food and Drug Administration commissioner, or surgeon general.
Taking aim at Trump's evisceration of key public health agencies and programs, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said last week: “Ebola does not wait for bureaucratic reorganizations. It spreads when surveillance systems are weakened, health workers are laid off, clinics lack protective equipment, and communities lose the trusted partners who help detect and contain outbreaks before they become public health emergencies."
"This is the perfect storm President Trump created," she continued. "He recklessly dismantled USAID, withheld and slashed other United States assistance to the region, fired critical staff, and created global health chaos. This is not efficiency. It is dangerous neglect."
"The United States spent years building the relationships, supply chains, laboratories, and community health networks that help stop deadly diseases at their source," DeLauro added. "The Trump administration tore into that capacity and now wants to pretend the consequences were unforeseeable.”
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Israel Bombs Gaza Hospitals, Killing and Wounding Dozens of Palestinians
"Attacks on hospitals must stop," said the head of the World Health Organization. "The aid blockade must end to allow immediate entry of food, medicines, and equipment."
May 13, 2025
U.S.-backed Israeli forces bombed two hospitals in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing and wounding at least dozens of Palestinians including patients, forcibly displaced people, medical staff, rescue workers, and a well-known journalist.
Early Tuesday, Israel bombed the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, killing at least two people including photojournalist Hasan Eslaih, who was receiving treatment after surviving a previous Israeli attempt to assassinate him last month.
Gaza officials said Eslaih, who was the director of the Alam24 News Agency, is at least the 215th media worker killed by Israel since October 2023. Eslaih lost a finger and was badly injured in an April 7 Israeli strike on a tent outside the same hospital in which numerous people were burned alive. More than a dozen patients were reportedly injured in Tuesday's attack.
"The burn unit was struck, 18 hospital beds in the surgical department, eight beds in the intensive care unit, and 10 inpatient beds were destroyed," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said after the attack. "This is huge blow to the already overwhelmed health system."
"We repeat our call: Attacks on hospitals must stop," Tedros added. "The aid blockade must end to allow immediate entry of food, medicines, and equipment to support patients and the rehabilitation of hospitals. The best medicine is peace."
Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill said following the attack that "the U.S. is facilitating these war crimes and most Western journalists remain totally silent."
Later on Tuesday, Israel bombed a courtyard and surrounding areas of the European Hospital, also in Khan Younis, killing at least 28 people and injuring scores more. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged the attack, claiming it targeted "Hamas operatives who were inside a command and control complex built within an infrastructure under the hospital."
British surgeon Tom Potokar was inside European Hospital when it was bombed. He said that "this is where kids with cancer are waiting to be evacuated and supposed to be 'deconflicted."
According to the Gaza Government Media Office, 38 hospitals, 81 health centers, and 164 medical facilities have been destroyed, damaged, or rendered inoperable since Israel launched its assault on the coastal enclave after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs condemned the strikes,
saying on social media that "these attacks are unacceptable and must end. Healthcare is not a target."
Attacks on medical facilities are war crimes under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
The Gaza Health Ministry decried "the repeated targeting of hospitals and the pursuit and killing of wounded patients inside treatment rooms," adding that such attacks confirm "Israel's deliberate intent to inflict greater damage to the healthcare system."
In the United States, the advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement that fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "bombs hospitals, slaughters Palestinian civilians, destroys homes, and seeks to starve and ethnically cleanse the population of Gaza, all in a brutal campaign to continue Israel's genocide and stay in office indefinitely."
CAIR added that U.S. President Donald Trump "must act to stop these crimes against humanity, which our nation has unfortunately enabled for decades, and finally allow the Palestinian people to live in peace and freedom."
IDF strikes have obliterated Gaza's medical infrastructure along with the rest of the densely populated strip. Last year, an independent United Nations commission found that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
The commission's report detailed hundreds of IDF attacks on Gaza healthcare facilities and the killing or wounding of around 1,700 medical workers, calling such killings "widespread and systematic."
Israel's 585-day onslaught and siege—which officials say has left more than 186,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened—is the subject of an ongoing genocide case brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague by South Africa.
Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court, also in The Hague, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and starvation as a weapon of war.
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As Uganda Reports Ebola Death, Experts Sound Alarm on Trump's Order to Quit WHO
"This is pure stupidity that will only hurt us," warned one U.S. doctor and Ebola expert.
Jan 31, 2025
Public health experts pointed to the announcement of highly contagious hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in at least three central and eastern African nations this week to underscore what they say are the dangers of President Donald Trump's ideologically driven decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization during a time of mounting pandemic threats.
Uganda Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Diana Atwine said Thursday that a 32-year-old nurse died of Sudan Ebola virus the previous day in the capital Kampala amid the first new outbreak in two years. Atwine assured the public "that we are in full control" of the situation.
Uganda's alert followed reports of another potential Ebola outbreak, this one in the Western Democratic Republic of Congo. Additionally, health officials earlier this month announced an outbreak of suspected Marburg Virus Disease—a severe, often fatal illness similar to Ebola—in neighboring Tanzania. At least nine people have reportedly died.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media Thursday that "a full-scale response is being initiated" by the Ugandan government and its international partners. In a statement, the WHO said it is "deploying senior public health experts and mobilizing staff from the country office to support all the key outbreak response measures."
During past outbreaks of Ebola—a severe viral disease spread via contact with infected bodily fluids, with a fatality rate of 50-90%—the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked with the WHO to help stem the spread of the illness.
However, following Trump's January 20 executive order initiating a U.S. withdrawal from the WHO over its alleged "mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic," CDC and other public health officials have been ordered to stop working with the United Nations body, effective immediately.
"The agencies that are statutorily responsible for protecting our health are unable to do that job because they are not able to pick up the phone and talk to people who might have information that could protect U.S. health and security," Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University's School of Public Health, told Stat this week.
"This is just one of the examples about how the United States loses access, loses the ability to protect American lives," Nuzzo explained. "We can't be everywhere, we can't have eyes and ears on the ground in every possible location [where] harm could be emerging. And this is what happens when we don't engage with institutions that can provide these lifesaving insights."
Experts said other existing or emerging epidemiological threats including bird flu underscore the lifesaving imperative of more, not less, international cooperation.
"Local health officials and doctors depend on the CDC to get disease updates, timely prevention, testing and treatment guidelines, and information about outbreaks," University of Southern California public health expert Dr. Jeffrey Klausner told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
"Shutting down public health communication stops a basic function of public health," he added. "Imagine if the government turned off fire sirens or other warning systems."
Dr. Ashish Jha, the former White House Covid-19 coordinator during the Biden administration, noted Thursday on social media that during Ebola outbreaks, the CDC "usually sends a team right away to help bolster staff that might already be there and support the ministry of health."
"There'd be clear communication from CDC and White House about what exactly is being done, what help we are sending, what American hospitals and others can do to be prepared should Ebola land here," Jha continued. "So what of this is happening? My sense is, not much—but we don't know."
"The communication freeze means CDC not sharing what if anything it is doing," he added. "Travel freeze means CDC staff likely not going. Directive to stop working with WHO means we're flying blind and don't have information about what is happening on the ground. None of this is good."
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UN Expert Urges Medical World to Cut Ties With Israel Amid Attacks on Gaza Hospitals
Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese condemned Israel's destruction of Gaza's healthcare system as "a critical tool of its ongoing genocide."
Dec 30, 2024
As Israeli forces stand accused of war crimes during attacks on multiple Gaza hospitals in recent days, Francesca Albanese—the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories—on Monday implored the global medical community to respond by cutting ties with Israel.
"I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel's full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide," Albanese wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Albanese amplified a post by Dr. Rupa Marya—one of the most vocal defenders of Palestinian human rights in the U.S. medical community—calling on Israeli forces to release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.
Abu Safiya, who documented Israel's siege and attack on Kamal Adwan and who reported last week that nearly 50 people including five hospital staff members were killed by an Israel Defense Forces airstrike on a nearby apartment tower, was among dozens of other medical staffers abducted by IDF troops on Saturday.
After besieging and attacking the hospital for weeks, Israeli forces raided the facility and rounded up 240 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel claimed without evidence that Kamal Adwan was being used as a Hamas command center. With the facility shut down and badly damaged, critical patients and their caregivers were forced to evacuate to the nearby Indonesian Hospital.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on Saturday published accounts from witnesses to alleged IDF war crimes during the Kamal Adwan raid, including "deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area."
CNN reported Monday that Abu Safiya is believed to be held at Sde Teiman, the notorious prison in Israel's Negev Desert where dozens of detainees have died and former inmates say many others have been tortured and raped. The IDF dubiously claimed that Abu Safiya is "suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative."
On Sunday, Israeli forces also attacked al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, killing seven people, according to Gaza Civil Defense officials. Israel said the strike targeted Hamas militants, without providing further information. Anadolu also reported an IDF artillery attack on the Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday said it was "appalled" by the Kamal Adwan raid and called out the "systematic dismantling of the health system" in Gaza by Israeli forces.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus—who on Thursday survived a deadly Israeli airstrike on Sanaa International Airport in Yemen—on Sunday condemned and demanded an end to IDF attacks on Gaza hospitals.
"Hospitals in Gaza have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat," Tedros said on X. "We repeat: Stop attacks on hospitals. People in Gaza need access to healthcare. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Cease-fire!"
On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement that "repeated hostilities in and around hospitals have obliterated the healthcare system in northern Gaza, putting civilians at an unacceptably grave risk of going without lifesaving care."
"The influx of patients, caregivers, and displaced civilians seeking shelter creates a situation that medical personnel cannot solve," ICRC continued. "The increasingly dangerous situation comes in addition to more than a year of insufficient provision of medical equipment and supplies, fuel, food, and specialized healthcare capacities."
"ICRC reiterates its urgent call for the respect and protection of medical facilities in line with international humanitarian law," the organization added. "This protection is a legal obligation and a moral imperative to preserve human life."
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a massive attack on Israel, at least 45,484 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with nearly 120,000 others wounded or missing, according to local health officials. Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza has also forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened most of the enclave's population. Gaza officials reported five infants, a child, and a nurse have died due to cold temperatures and exposure in recent days.
The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by numerous other countries and rights groups.
Palestine defenders in the international medical community are planning a "call in sick from genocide" global day of action on January 6. Organizers are calling on members of healthcare worker unions to push for a strike, and for doctors and others to organize free clinics that day.
Marya, a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco who is currently on paid suspension after questioning whether an incoming student from Israel—where IDF service is near-universal—took part in war crimes in Gaza, posted Monday in support of the day of action.
"It is absolutely essential that when we see any entity, any group, destroying healthcare, and using the destruction of healthcare as a way to accelerate the annihilation of a people, as Israel is doing, it is absolutely urgent that the global medical community calls to stop this," Marya told Common Dreams on Monday.
"And we stop it through demanding an arms embargo, demanding unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza, and demanding the end to all institutional relationships between our medical institutions and Israeli institutions," she continued. "What we need to do right now is to stop the normalization of genocide, enablement, and perpetration in our spaces of healthcare."
"What we're seeing is genocide... accelerated through targeting the people who are supposed to heal," Marya added. "The healthcare system in Gaza has been targeted in order to accelerate the annihilation of the Palestinian people. And if the global healthcare community does not stand up right now, this will be the future of all wars."
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WHO Chief OK But Others Killed in Israeli Strike on Yemen Airport
State media reports at least four people were killed and 21 others injured.
Dec 26, 2024
As part of Israel's assault on various countries across the Middle East, Israeli fighter jets on Thursday bombed multiple sites in Yemen, including Sanaa International Airport, killing multiple people and threatening the life of a leading United Nations official.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and colleagues were at the airport, wrapping up a trip "to negotiate the release of U.N. staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen," when the attack occurred, the agency leader said on social media. "We continue to call for the detainees' immediate release."
"As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa, about two hours ago, the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane's crew members was injured," Tedros explained, noting the reported deaths. "The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge—just a few meters from where we were—and the runway were damaged. We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave. My U.N. and WHO colleagues and I are safe. Our heartfelt condolences to the families whose loved ones lost their lives in the attack."
According to The New York Times: "At least four people were killed and 21 others injured in the attack on Thursday after Israel struck the international airport in Sana and the city of al Hodeida, the Saba state news agency said, citing Yemen's Health Ministry. The report could not be independently verified."
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, told the Times that Israel had no prior knowledge that the WHO leader would be at the airport during the attack. "We didn't know," he said. "We wish him well."
The IDF said in a statement posted on social media that "fighter jets conducted intelligence-based strikes" with approval from Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The targets that were struck by the IDF include military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime for its military activities in both the Sanaa International Airport and the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations," the military continued. "In addition, the IDF struck military infrastructure in the al Hodeida, Salif, and Ras Kanatib ports on the western coast. These military targets were used by the Houthi terrorist regime to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials."
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the U.S.-armed IDF has not only decimated the Gaza Strip and killed over 45,000 Palestinians there but also ramped up strikes on other groups tied to Iran, including the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Additionally, Israel has exploited the recent collapse of Syrian former President Bashar al-Assad's government, seizing more territory in that country.
"The targeting of Sanaa International Airport and other civilian infrastructure is a Zionist crime against the entire Yemeni people," a Houthi spokesperson, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said in a statement. "If the Zionist enemy thinks that its crimes will deter Yemen from supporting Gaza, it is delusional."
The strikes on Yemen came a day after Netanyahu said that "the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and others have learned, and even if it takes time, this lesson will be understood across the Middle East."
Israel's ongoing destruction of Gaza has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader.
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14 Children From Same Family Among at Least 38 Killed by Israeli Strike on Gaza
"There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse," said one observer.
Oct 25, 2024
Dozens of Palestinians including many children from the same family were killed in an overnight Israel Defense Forces airstrike on their homes in the southern Gaza Strip following an IDF attack on a hospital in northern Gaza, where a number of children died after their oxygen was cut off.
Reuters reported Friday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes across Gaza have killed at least 72 Palestinians since Thursday night. At least 38 members of the al-Farra family, including women and 14 children, were killed when Israel bombed their residences in Khan Younis. Multiple local and international media outlets reported the children—whose bodies were intact after the strike—suffocated to death.
Some Palestine advocates slammed the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid for Israel and provides diplomatic cover for its war—for unconditionally supporting the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If the slaughter of babies in hospitals and children in their sleep does not shock the conscience of the Biden administration officials supporting the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza, nothing will," Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Friday.
Warning: The following video contains images of dead children.
"What crime would Israel have to commit that would end the Biden administration's complicity in genocide?" Awad added. "There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse."
Israel's 385-day assault on Gaza—which is the subject of an International Court of Justicegenocide case—has left tens of thousands of children dead, maimed, missing, or orphaned and hundreds of thousands more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Experts also say the war has wrought the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's children.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Gaza is "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." For the first time, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres this year added Israel to his "list of shame" of countries that kill and harm children during wars and other conflicts.
Overall, nearly 43,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, with more than 100,000 others wounded and at least 10,000 more believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Israeli forces also attacked the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Thursday after besieging the facility for days. Eyewitnesses said IDF tanks and bulldozers repeatedly entered the hospital compound and fired on the facility, damaging the intensive care unit with sick children inside and the storage tanks that provide its water and oxygen supplies. Hospital staff and wounded patients were reportedly kidnapped by IDF troops.
According to Al Jazeera, a number of children including babies died in the hospital due to a lack of oxygen.
"All departments of the hospital are under direct shelling," director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya
told CNN. "Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks."
Kamal Adwan is one of only three minimally functional hospitals in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been carrying out an offensive that has left thousands of Palestinians dead or wounded in recent weeks.
On Friday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that WHO officials have "lost touch with the personnel there."
"This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there," Tedros added.
The IDF said in a statement Friday that its assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital is "based on intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" and claimed it has "facilitated the evacuation of patients from the area while maintaining emergency services."
However, Abu Safiya said Thursday that "we lose at least one person every hour because of the lack of medical supplies and medical staff."
"Our ambulances can't transfer wounded people," he added. "Those who can arrive by themselves to the hospital receive care, but those who don't just die in the streets."
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said Friday that "children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at a rate of fewer than one child per day."
"If this lethally slow pace continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care," he continued. "As a result, children in Gaza are dying—not just from the bombs, bullets, and shells that strike them—but because, even when 'miracles happen,' even when the bombs go off and the homes collapse and the casualties mount, but the children survive, they are then prevented from leaving Gaza to receive the urgent care that would save their lives."
"This is not a logistical problem—we have the ability to safely transport these children out of Gaza," Elder added. "It is not a capacity problem—indeed, we were evacuating children at higher numbers just months ago. It is simply a problem that is being completely disregarded."
Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director at the U.K.-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said in a statement Friday that "this assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital is yet another atrocity by Israel that is eradicating Palestinian life in Gaza."
"Patients in need of lifesaving care are now left helpless under siege," Shalltoot added. "Healthcare workers, who should be able to provide care with dignity, are now fearing for their lives."
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory recently released a report concluding that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
Israel's intensified assault on Gaza comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed during a meeting with Arab leaders in London to work with "real urgency" toward a cease-fire.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who attended the meeting, admonished Blinken: "We look at northern Gaza and we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop."
Many observers including IDF participants in the war believe that Israel has implemented the so-called "General's Plan," a blueprint for the starvation and forced expulsion of Palestinians from northern Gaza. Hundreds of Israelis including senior government officials recently attended a conference geared toward ethnically cleansing and recolonizing Gaza.
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Israel Killed 28 Lebanese Medical Workers in 24 Hours, 73 Since War's Start: WHO
"I'm afraid first about my safety and about my family's safety because there's no safe place in Lebanon now," said one physician.
Oct 04, 2024
The head of the United Nations World Health Organization said Thursday that Israeli forces killed 28 healthcare workers in Lebanon over the previous 24 hours, and that 73 medical personnel are among the nearly 2,000 Lebanese killed during Israel's bombing and invasion of its northern neighbor.
"In southern Lebanon, 37 health facilities have been closed, while in Beirut, three hospitals have been forced to fully evacuate staff and patients, and another two were partially evacuated," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. "And yet healthcare continues to come under attack. In Lebanon alone, 28 health workers have been killed in the last 24 hours."
Tedros said the WHO "calls on urgent facilitation of flights to deliver health supplies to Lebanon," adding, "Lives depend on it!"
Lebanese Health Minister Firas Al-Abiad said separately Thursday that more than 40 paramedics and firefighters have been killed by Israeli forces over the previous three days.
Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, the acting WHO representative in Lebanon, said that "most of those healthcare workers killed in the last 24 hours, most of them—actually, all of them—were on duty."
"Some of them were in the ambulances, some of them were in the health facilities," Abubakar added. "They were on duty trying to help civilians who have been wounded in the conflict."
Dr. Fathalla Fattouh, the head cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon at Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) in Jnah, just outside Beirut, described the chaos he witnessed firsthand, including "a surge of nearly identical injuries—amputations, eye trauma, and shattered hip and femur bones—straining the hospital's capacity to a near-breaking point."
"We were forced to make difficult decisions," he added. "I believe that we did our best relying on available capacities, but with the escalation of events we need to plan for the worst."
Sara, a surgeon at the hospital, said that "there are only two hospitals in Lebanon prepared to treat burn patients, and once they were at capacity, we were left with nowhere to send the patients we received."
"It was a feeling of helplessness that we had never experienced before," she added.
Some doctors admitted fearing for their lives.
"It's hard to work in fear," Dr. Mohammad Taoube, who heads the emergency room at an undisclosed hospital in southern Lebanon, told Sky News on Wednesday. "I'm afraid first about my safety and about my family's safety because there's no safe place in Lebanon now."
According to figures provided by the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Israeli forces have killed 1,974 people in Lebanon—including at least 127 children—while wounding 9,384 others in recent weeks.
At least one American has been killed by Israeli bombing of Lebanon this week. Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad, 56, of Dearborn, Michigan was killed Tuesday while in Nabatieth in southern Lebanon caring for his sick mother and volunteering to help elderly, disabled, and injured patients at a local hospital.
The Nabatieth area has come under heavy Israeli bombardment. Local journalists said the city's main hospital "came under direct Israeli fire" on Friday and that two nurses were killed.
Lebanese officials said Friday that more than 1.2 million people have been forcibly displaced amid Israel's recent bombing and invasion of their country. The Israeli campaign comes amid attacks by the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah, whose rockets and other projectiles have killed or wounded scores of Israelis and forced tens of thousands from their homes.
Residents of southern Lebanon described the terror of coming under Israeli bombardment and having to flee for their lives. One woman, Fatima, and her 14-year-old daughter Zeinab said they were in their home preparing for a school exam when the shelling started.
"My mother told us to pack our things quickly, and we left in a rush," Zeinab told the U.N. Children's Fund on Thursday. "My siblings were crying. The journey was terrifying."
"The shelling was all around us, and the sound of explosions echoed everywhere," she said while crying. "We miss home dearly and yearn to return."
Tedros noted that since last October, when Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in solidarity with Gaza after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, over 1 million Lebanese have been displaced, with many seeking refuge in neighboring Syria.
He also said that "since the 7th of October last year, more than 1,500 people have been killed in Israel, almost 42,000 in Gaza, and more than 700 in the West Bank."
"In addition," Tedros added, "more than 10,000 people are missing in Gaza, and 1.9 million people are displaced, while 101 hostages taken from Israel remain in Gaza."
Hundreds of Palestinians working in the health sector have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, who have deliberately targeted medical workers. Israeli troops have also allegedly tortured doctors and other medical workers after kidnapping them from the coastal enclave.
Tedros on Thursday stressed the need for "deescalation of the conflict; for healthcare to be protected and not attacked; for access routes to be secured and supplies delivered; and for a cease-fire, a political solution, and peace."
"The best medicine," he said, "is peace."
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'We Need a Cease-Fire Now': Israeli Bombings Kill Dozens During Polio Vaccination Drive
"Israel kills 33 Palestinians in 24 hours but wants Palestinian families to think it's safe to travel to vaccinate their kids against polio," said one clinician.
Sep 04, 2024
United Nations agencies reiterated their calls for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after healthcare workers completed the first phase of a polio vaccination push in the face of relentless, deadly Israeli airstrikes.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, announced early Wednesday that more than 187,000 children under the age of 10 were vaccinated during the first three days of the vaccination drive, an effort launched shortly after health officials detected the first polio case in the enclave in over two decades.
"Four fixed sites will continue to offer polio vaccination for the next three days in central Gaza to ensure no child is missed," said Tedros. "Preparations are underway today to roll out the vaccine campaign in south Gaza, which will start tomorrow. We are grateful for the dedication of all the families, health workers, and vaccinators who made this part of the campaign a success despite the dire conditions in the Gaza Strip."
"We ask for the humanitarian pauses to continue to be respected," he added. "We continue to call for a cease-fire."
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) echoed that message, writing on social media that "above all, we need a cease-fire now."
U.S.-armed Israeli forces have bombed the Gaza Strip throughout the dayslong vaccination drive, with one human rights monitor noting that some of the attacks "targeted locations near the vaccination centers."
Al Jazeera reported Wednesday that the Israeli military "targeted a home" in Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least one person. In Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike "killed two more people, including a child," the outlet reported.
Gaza health officials said Tuesday that more than 30 people had been killed over the preceding 24-hour period.
"Israel kills 33 Palestinians in 24 hours but wants Palestinian families to think it's safe to travel to vaccinate their kids against polio," clinician and activist Annie Sparrow wrote on social media.
Health officials and aid workers risking their lives to vaccinate Gaza children against polio have said an enclave-wide inoculation campaign could only be successful with a sustained cease-fire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obstructing an agreement with hardline demands, including a continued Israeli military presence in the Palestinian territory.
The Washington Post noted Tuesday that Netanyahu's insistence on Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor—a strip of land along Gaza's border with Egypt—"has also raised tensions with Egypt, which objects to any Israeli presence there and has warned that it violates the 1979 Israeli-Egypt peace treaty, a landmark agreement that has preserved peace between the two countries for more than four decades."
In the absence of a deal to end Israel's assault, humanitarian conditions on the ground in Gaza continue to deteriorate.
Tor Wennesland, the U.N.'s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said after returning from Gaza earlier this week that he "witnessed firsthand the catastrophic impact of the hostilities."
"The scale of destruction is immense, the humanitarian needs are colossal and soaring, and civilians continue to bear the brunt of this conflict. I unequivocally condemn the horrifying civilian death toll in Gaza," said Wennesland. "A deal is crucial to saving lives, reducing regional tensions, and enabling the U.N., in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, to accelerate efforts to address the pressing needs of Gaza's population."
"The ongoing conflict has destroyed the lives of countless families," he added. "It must stop."
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WHO Chief Demands Swift Medical Evacuations for 9,000 Injured, Sick Patients in Gaza
Israel is currently attempting to send several patients back to the besieged enclave from East Jerusalem, where they have been receiving cancer treatment.
Mar 30, 2024
The head of the World Health Organization on Saturday demanded that Israel speed up approvals for medical evacuations from Gaza as the number of people who urgently need life-saving healthcare reached roughly 9,000—and as Israeli officials threatened to send several Palestinian patients back to the besieged enclave from the East Jerusalem hospital where they've received cancer treatment.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, warned that with only 10 of Gaza's 36 hospitals "minimally functional" following repeated attacks on the enclave's healthcare system, "thousands of patients continue to be deprived of healthcare."
At the beginning of March, WHO assessed that about 8,000 patients needed to be immediately evacuated from Gaza to receive treatment for cancer, kidney failure, and other chronic diseases as well as injuries from Israel's relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure.
That number has grown by about 1,000 in recent weeks, Tedros said.
More than 3,400 sick and injured people have been taken abroad via the southern border town of Rafah since Israel began its bombardment on October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
"But many more need to be evacuated," said Tedros. "We urge Israel to speed up approvals for evacuations, so that critical patients can be treated. Every moment matters."
As Tedros called on Israel to swiftly approve medical evacuations, human rights advocates condemned Israeli authorities who aim to deport patients with cancer back to Gaza from an East Jerusalem hospital where they've been receiving advanced treatment since before the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
"Returning residents to Gaza during a military conflict and a humanitarian crisis is against international law and poses a deliberate risk to innocent lives," Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a statement. "All the more so when it concerns patients who may face a death sentence due to unsanitary conditions and hunger, along with the unlikely availability of medical care."
At least 22 patients from Gaza, including several children, have been receiving treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital, having received authorization from Israel prior to the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) current escalation.
"I arrived here in Jerusalem with my son Hamza on September 27 last year," Qamar Abu Zoar told The Guardian on Saturday. "Hamza, who is four and a half years old, has a brain tumor and needs treatment that he couldn't receive in Gaza. While we were here, the war broke out. And since then, we have been stranded in this hospital, while my other two younger children are in the north of Gaza with my husband."
The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, has urged hospital officials to provide a list of patients who could be sent back to Gaza, where patients in the remaining hospitals are suffering from infections due to the use of improvised and unsterilized medical equipment, as well as from worsening malnutrition.
Israel's near-total blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has affected food and medicines, and CNN reported earlier this month that anesthetics, anesthesia machines, oxygen tanks, and ventilators are frequently rejected by Israeli inspectors who examine aid trucks.
Last week, the Israeli High Court of Justice halted an effort by COGAT to send 10 patients from Augusta Victoria Hospital back to Gaza, where in many cases their homes and hometowns have been decimated by Israeli bombing and shelling.
COGAT claimed the patients had finished their treatment and said it would work with aid agencies if they had a need for more medical care, coordinating "their stay with the hospitals to safeguard their health."
But as Tedros warned Saturday, the vast majority of hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating.
Israel's High Court has until April 21 to issue a final ruling on whether officials can deport patients to Gaza.
"The hospitals and the medical staff must strongly oppose the release of the patients from their custody," said PHR, "unless a guarantee is given that they will not be returned to Gaza where their lives are in danger."
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'Beyond Comprehension': Medical Team Reports Starvation, Infections at Gaza Hospital
"We're doing everything we can, navigating through critical shortages and working with very limited resources, to save lives amidst this dire situation."
Mar 25, 2024
Members of an emergency medical team that has treated patients at a hospital in southern Gaza in recent weeks said Monday that the horrors they've witnessed there are "unimaginable," from worsening malnutrition to deadly infections stemming from lack of healthcare equipment.
The team formed by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) has been working at the European Hospital near Khan Younis, a city decimated by Israeli bombing. At least two hospitals in the city are currently under siege by Israeli forces, which have killed more than 32,000 Gazans and injured tens of thousands more in less than six months.
"The situation we're facing is beyond comprehension," said Arvind Das, IRC's Gaza team lead. "Continuous Israeli military operations near hospitals are making an already tense situation even worse for those seeking shelter or medical help, pushing the healthcare system to the brink of collapse."
"Despite the relentless efforts of our medical teams, the infrastructure necessary to deliver optimal medical care has been severely compromised by bombing, stringent restrictions on the entry of aid including medical supplies, and the overwhelming surge in needs," Das added. "We're doing everything we can, navigating through critical shortages and working with very limited resources, to save lives amidst this dire situation."
Not a single hospital in the Gaza Strip is fully functional after months of Israeli attacks, and the dozen that are partially operating are well beyond capacity, with patients and displaced people filling the hallways and outskirts of the facilities. The United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to health has accused Israel's military of waging an "unrelenting war" on Gaza's medical system.
Dr. Konstantina Ilia Karydi, an anesthetist with the emergency medical team, said Monday that the European Hospital "had an original capacity of just 200 beds, and at the moment it has expanded to 1,000 beds."
"There are around 22,000 people that have been displaced from other parts of Gaza sheltering in the corridors and in tents inside the hospital, because people feel that it's safer to be here than anywhere else," said Karydi.
"We worked around the challenges we faced and managed in a different way, but the staff here are overwhelmed."
MAP said in a statement that the medical team's surgeons "completed successful complex vascular and orthopedic surgeries on patients" at the hospital, but some "later died due to infections in the hospitals and the inability to provide post-operative care."
"This is due to the intense security situation that forced healthcare workers to evacuate hospitals and hindered their access," said MAP. "Moreover, significant damage to hospital infrastructure and facilities, coupled with a complete shortage of equipment and medicine—largely due to Israel's restrictions on medical aid entry into Gaza—severely impacted the ability to provide necessary care."
Dr. Husam Basheer, an orthopedic surgeon with the emergency medical team, stressed that healthcare workers in the territory are "managing with the bare minimum of resources," lacking even basic supplies such as gauze.
"We worked around the challenges we faced and managed in a different way," said Basheer, "but the staff here are overwhelmed."
The medical team's report added to the abundance of harrowing accounts from healthcare personnel on the devastating conditions inside Gaza's hospitals, many of which have been shelled and raided—in some cases repeatedly—by Israeli forces.
Al Jazeera reported Monday that the Israeli military has "surrounded the al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in southern Gaza, while pressing on with their siege of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the strip."
"Military vehicles, tanks, and attack drones are encircling these two facilities," Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported. "They're also blocking the entrance with piles of sand, preventing medical staff, patients, and injured people inside from leaving safely and constantly failing to provide a safe corridor for people and evacuees trapped inside the hospital."
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, responded with alarm Monday to reports that Israeli forces killed a Palestinian Red Crescent Society volunteer and a displaced person sheltering at al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.
"Another reported attack on al-Amal hospital in Gaza, another situation where patients and health workers are in great jeopardy," Tedros wrote on social media. "We appeal for their immediate protection, and repeat our call for a cease-fire."
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