UN says 22 healthcare workers killed in Gaza amid Israeli war

By Yilmaz Öztürk

The United Nations said Wednesday that 22 healthcare workers have been killed across the Gaza Strip since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7.

“Since the start of the war, the World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 178 health attacks in the Gaza Strip that resulted in 22 fatalities and 48 injuries among healthcare workers on duty,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said at a press briefing.

He said that currently, nearly 770,000 internally displaced persons out of 1.7 million are sheltering in 99 UNRWA facilities in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

He also highlighted that displaced people in the overcrowded shelters are facing infectious diseases, saying the WHO had recorded a 35% increase in skin diseases and a 40% increase in cases of diarrhea.

Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip following a surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.

The number of people killed in Israeli air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since then has risen to 14,532, including over 6,000 children and 4,000 women, the media office in the besieged enclave said Wednesday.

The Israeli death toll, meanwhile, is around 1,200, according to official figures.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar