(Geneva) The World Health Organization (WHO) was alarmed on Friday by the worsening health crisis in the West Bank occupied by Israel, where draconian restrictions, violence and attacks on medical infrastructure are complicating access. taking care.
In a statement, the UN agency called for “the immediate and active protection of civilians and the health system in the West Bank.”
Since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 521 Palestinians, including 126 children, have been killed and more than 5,200, including 800 children, injured in violence in the West Bank. , noted the WHO.
The Palestinian Authority in power in the West Bank estimates that at least 545 people have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers since October 7.
The influx of injured people adds to “the growing burden of trauma and emergency care in health facilities already under strain”, and which can only operate at 70% of their capacity due to lack of money, a deplored the organization.
The West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has been experiencing an outbreak of violence for more than a year which has worsened since October 7.
That day, an unprecedented Hamas attack against southern Israel left 1,194 dead, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. A total of 251 people were kidnapped and forcibly taken to the Gaza Strip, where 116 of them remain, of whom 41 died, according to the Israeli army.
In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive in Gaza that left 37,266 people dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
Most hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or heavily damaged since the start of the war, but the WHO also recorded 480 attacks on health facilities or ambulances in the West Bank between October 7 and May 28. These attacks left 16 dead and 95 injured, according to the organization.
Still according to the WHO, access to care is further complicated in the West Bank by the closure of crossing points between Israel and the West Bank, growing insecurity and the closure of entire villages.
A serious fiscal crisis, aggravated by the fact that Israel has been withholding an increasing share of the income tax it collects from Palestinians since October 7, has meant that “caregivers have received only half of their salaries for almost one year and that 45% of essential medicines are out of stock”, further denounces the WHO.