Red Cross warns Gaza at risk of ‘medical shutdown’

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - Concrete action must be taken to preserve access to life-saving and emergency medical care in the Gaza Strip, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday.

"Every hospital in the Gaza Strip is overcrowded and short on medical supplies, fuel, food, and water," William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC's office in Gaza, said in a statement from Geneva.

"Many are housing thousands of displaced families. And now two more facilities risk being lost due to the fighting. The cumulative impact on the health system is devastating, and urgent action must be taken," Schomburg added.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following an Oct. 7 Hamas attack, killing at least 25,700 Palestinians and injuring 63,740 others. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The ICRC said that for approximately 2 million people, the Nasser Medical Complex and the European Gaza Hospital (EGH) – both in Gaza’s south – are the only two referral hospitals that provide advanced surgical and medical emergency services with large bed capacities.

“Nasser, and a third facility, Al Amal Hospital, operated by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, are in the midst of the current hostilities,” it added.

The ICRC said that it is imperative to protect Gaza’s health facilities.

"If its medical facilities – especially Nasser and EGH – cease to function, the world will bear witness to untold thousands of preventable deaths given the size of the population, the current extreme living conditions, a collapsing health system, and the intensity of the fighting," the Red Cross said.

The ICRC noted that less than 20% of Gaza's land – around 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) – is now refuge to over 1.5 million people.

It said that the parties to the conflict and all who influence them must take immediate steps to ensure the safety of the hospitals and the people within them.

They should also ensure that health personnel, wounded and sick people, and ambulances can safely access the hospitals and facilitate the timely resupply for the functioning of the hospitals, including medicine, fuel, food, and water, the Red Cross added.