WHO ‘terribly worried’ about situation at Shifa Hospital after Israel stormed it again

The Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed concern about the situation in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and called for protecting hospitals in Gaza.

“We are terribly worried about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern #Gaza, which is endangering health workers, patients and civilians,” he said in a post on the X on Monday.

Hospitals should never be battlegrounds. We are terribly worried about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern #Gaza, which is endangering health workers, patients and civilians.

The hospital has only recently restored minimal health services. Any hostilities or…

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 18, 2024

He stressed that hospitals must not be turned into battlefields and appealed for them to be protected.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli army stormed Al-Shifa Medical Complex and started a new military operation there, despite the presence of thousands of patients, wounded and displaced persons inside.

Israeli TV’s Channel 13 claimed that the operation began after “information about the presence of senior Hamas officials in Al-Shifa Complex.” It added that 80 Palestinians had been arrested during the raid and one Israeli soldier had been injured.

This is the second time that Israeli occupation forces have invaded the complex since the beginning of the war on Gaza on 7 October 2023. After besieging it for a week, they invaded it on 16 November last year. They withdrew from it eight days later having destroyed its courtyards, parts of its buildings, medical equipment and power generator.

The Israeli war on Gaza left tens of thousands of civilian casualties, most of them children and women, and unprecedented destruction and a humanitarian catastrophe; leading Israel, for the first time since its establishment in 1948, to appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of committing genocide.

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