A Palestinian child is killed on average every 10 minutes in the besieged Gaza Strip, says the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), warning that “nowhere and no one is safe” under Israel’s relentless onslaught on the coastal enclave.
Speaking to the United Nations Security Council on Friday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation in Gaza as “desperate”.
“On average, a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza,” he told the 15-member council.
The WHO chief, who is from Ethiopia’s Tigray region, recalled the sounds of tracer bullets, gunfire, and “the smell and images” of war, saying, “Nowhere and no one is safe.”
“I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through because as a child, I went through the same.”
The WHO director also warned that the Palestinian territory’s health system “is on its knees.”
He said there have been more than 250 attacks on health centers in Gaza since the start of Israel’s brutal attacks on the enclave.
“Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals.”
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Marwan Jilani, also addressed the Security Council by video, calling on members to “do all you can to spare further deaths and sufferings.”
Jilani warned about the dire situation at the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which the Red Crescent said was fired on Friday by Israeli snipers.
“Our utmost concern is the direct threat to the lives of all those wounded and sick, together with tens of thousands of civilians, including thousands of children.”
“They are looking at you, imploring you to act to stop another possible massacre unfolding,” he told the council.
The Security Council has so far failed to issue a resolution on Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
The regime’s forces have so far killed over 11,078, including more than 4,500 children, according to health authorities.
