Hospitals, civilians must always be protected: Senior UN official

​​​​​​​By Zehra Nur Celik

Hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip have been struck directly amid escalating hostilities, worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis, a senior UN official said Saturday.

“Hospitals, patients, medical staff and other civilians must always be protected. They are never a target,” Muhannad Hadi, humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said in a statement.

Humanitarian and rescue teams must be granted immediate access to save lives, Hadi stressed.

“International humanitarian law is an obligation that must always be upheld,” he said.

Since Friday, Israeli forces have yet to fulfill an urgent UN request for access to North Gaza to help rescue dozens of injured individuals trapped under the rubble.

“Every minute counts and these delays are life-threatening,” warned Hadi.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, Israel has killed more than 42,500 people in Gaza since a cross-border incursion by the resistance group, Hamas, on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel killed the group's leader, Yahya Sinwar, earlier this week. Sinwar had taken charge after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 in Iran's capital of Tehran.

The Israeli brutal offensive has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

Mediation efforts led by the US, Egypt and Qatar to reach a Gaza cease-fire and prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas have failed because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to halt the war.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.