OCHA says UN aid convoy blocked outside Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis

Anjali Sharma

GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 28th Feb. UN relief agencies operating in Gaza on Tuesday voiced deep frustration over aid access restrictions placed by the Israeli military, after ambulances carrying patients away from a hospital over the weekend were stopped for several hours while health workers were searched and detained.

UN Humanitarian Country Team in Palestine said “This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need,”  after the mission to evacuate 24 patients from Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

According to Gaza’s health authority after repeated international calls for a ceasefire, negotiations have been going on between the Israeli authorities, Hamas representatives for the release of the hostages and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Some 30,000 Gazans have been killed, the majority women and children.

Jens Laerke spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office said several patients “if not all of them” required some kind of surgical intervention “which of course could not happen at Al Amal Hospital”. 31 non-critical patients had to be left behind, it added.

Mr. Laerke confirmed that the evacuation mission had been informed to the Israeli authorities who had acknowledged this notification as part of standard de-confliction protocols.

He said that the Israeli military had not given “any information or any communication” about why the ambulances were detained for at least seven hours nor why the paramedics “had been taken out, forced to undress”, with two still not freed.

WHO led an convoy on Sunday to Al Amal Hospital. UN partner the Palestine Red Crescent Society evacuated 24 patients, including a pregnant woman, a mother and a newborn.

UN country team said in a statement that the hospital a PCRS-run facility has been at the centre of military operations in Khan Younis over a month, sustained 40 attacks between 22 January and 22 February which left 25 dead and health workers scared to leave the medical compound for weeks.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told journalists in Geneva that today in Gaza, only 12 of its 36 hospitals are “partially functioning”, “six in the south and six in the north but 23 hospitals are not functioning at all”.

Mr. Lindmeier said additional 15 emergency medical teams have deployed in the south of Gaza with four field hospitals offering a combined capacity of 305 beds.

He said “These are important pockets of help, but of course it would be more important to get the Gaza health system back up on its feet and get all those healthcare workers – which are there and trained and they are even, under these circumstances, ready to work – into a position and able to work.”

UN relief mission to Al Amal delivered needed medical supplies, medication and antibiotics with some food, water and fuel for the generators.

WHO reported “The health workers confirmed that they were able to step outside the hospital buildings within the compound on Saturday after a month inside.”

“They were afraid for their lives, since there was fighting around the area and the hospital had been hit numerous times.”

The hospital had 100 beds and focused on maternal and child health with some capacity to address basic surgical and internal medicine needs with specialized rehabilitation services before the war.

The destruction caused by the bombing of the third floor decreased the capacity to an estimated 60 beds, the agency stated.

WHO, OCHA, UNRWA, the UNFPA, UN landmine relief agency and the UN Department for Safety and Security participated in the operation which delivered supplies to treat 50 trauma paitents

UN peacekeepers expressed alarm at an escalation in hostilities on the borderas the Blue Line that separates Israel and Lebanon.

The alert from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon follows what it calls “a concerning shift in the exchanges of fire” in recent days between Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon and the Israeli military.

UNIFIL reported “an expansion and intensification of strikes”, while also calling for both sides “to halt hostilities,” in a statement issued..

It read “The on-off conflict has “claimed too many lives”, jeopardized livelihoods and “changed the life of tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line”, after increasing exchanges of fire since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel last October.

The statement added that UNIFIL has been engaged with both sides “to decrease tensions and prevent dangerous misunderstandings, but recent events have the potential to put at risk a political solution to this conflict”, the UN force warned.