GENEVA, April 3. /TASS/. The healthcare system in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon has been attacked 906 times since October 2023, leaving 736 people dead and 1,014 injured, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
"Since the conflict began, WHO has verified 906 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon, resulting in 736 deaths and 1,014 injuries," he said at a briefing in Geneva.
"Only ten of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still able to function partially," the WHO chief said, adding that the organization will "continue to support these hospitals to deliver services as best as they can." "We are seeing a very high burden of skin and respiratory infections and diarrheal sickness," he said.
Ghebreyesus welcomed the UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. "We <…> call for the immediate implementation [of the resolution]," he emphasized.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 240 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes have also been reported on the West Bank.