WHO chief slams Israel’s bombardment of Khan Younis

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - The World Health Organization’s director-general denounced Israel’s bombardment of the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

“The ongoing heavy bombardment, evacuation orders and killing of civilians in Khan Younis, Gaza is just horrendous,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

“WHO team joined an UNRWA mission to help those who were injured in today’s blast at the training centre where civilians were sheltering,” he noted and extended his condolences to the victims’ families.

Earlier, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Gaza, Thomas White, wrote on X that an attack on the Khan Younis Training Centre took place Wednesday, during which two tank rounds hit a building that shelters 800 people.

Nine people were killed and 75 injured in the attack, according to White.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said heavy bombardment of Khan Younis continues.

"Ordering trapped people to evacuate and bombing them before they can even do so is callous," Griffiths said on X.

Israel has pounded Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 25,700 Palestinians and injuring 63,740. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Diyar Guldogan from Washington contributed to this report