With the start of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, international institutions and experts point to the necessity of working to save the health sector and provide health care to patients who have been suffering under the ongoing Israeli aggression since October 7, 2023, while the truce also represents an opportunity to work to recover the bodies buried under The ruins.
The day before yesterday, Friday, the World Health Organization expressed cautious optimism about the potential significant boost to aid relief in the devastated enclave.
The representative of the World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rick Pepperkorn, said, “The goal is to obtain between 500 and 600 trucks per day during the coming weeks,” according to a report published on the United Nations website.
This would represent a “massive increase” from 40 to 50 trucks arriving in Gaza in recent months, and would be similar to the level of aid arriving in Gaza before the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7, 2023, significantly reducing relief deliveries.
Peppercorn described the ceasefire announcement as a “sign of hope,” but warned that the challenge is enormous and terrifying, due to the chronic and severe shortage of food, fuel and medical supplies.
Peppercorn said that plans are ready to begin deliveries on Sunday, adding, “We have ordered ready-made temporary clinics and hospitals that we will integrate into existing facilities, integrating existing health facilities as part of that to expand some of the required bed capacity, meet urgent health needs and provide health services.”
Humanitarian workers have repeatedly warned that the crisis in Gaza for civilians has reached catastrophic levels.
Dr Pepperkorn said disease was spreading and the risk of starvation remained high, needs that were critical to address, especially when more than 12,000 patients – a third of them children – were still awaiting evacuation for specialist care.
Slow progress in evacuations
But the pace of evacuations has been painfully slow: Of the 1,200 requests submitted between November and December 2024, only 29 were approved, a rate of just 2.4%, according to the World Health Organization.
The organization and other agencies stressed the immediate need to provide food, water and medical supplies, but also fuel and spare parts for hospital generators.
Gaza’s healthcare system has been devastated, with only half of its 36 hospitals currently functioning.
According to the United Nations health agency, critical health infrastructure remains a target, noting 664 attacks on health care institutions since October 2023, causing deaths among civilians and medical workers, and also causing damage to vital health facilities.
Despite the miserable conditions, the World Health Organization aims to implement an ambitious 60-day emergency health response plan once the ceasefire begins.
This includes expanding existing health efforts, establishing temporary medical clinics and restoring basic health care services.
Efforts will also focus on combating malnutrition, strengthening disease surveillance, and providing medical supplies to areas that have been difficult to reach until now.
$10 billion is needed for health
According to the World Health Organization, more than $10 billion is needed to restore Gaza’s devastated healthcare system, and significant international support will be essential to avoid further loss of life and prevent the complete collapse of the region’s health infrastructure.
In addition to addressing immediate health needs, there is also an urgent need for broader humanitarian assistance. Food, clean water and shelter are key priorities, along with medicines and other vital medical equipment that remain in severe shortage.
The Israeli aggression led to the destruction of the health care sector, and to its depletion of human resources – those who were martyred or injured – and equipment and infrastructure.
The medical staff braved the Israeli attacks, but had little left to offer the patients.
For thousands of wounded and sick Palestinians in Gaza, the ceasefire is more than just a political achievement, it is a matter of survival, and the Rafah crossing is expected to be opened as part of the deal, allowing Palestinians in Gaza to leave for medical treatment.
Dr. Muhammad Abu Salamiya, Director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Head of the Treatment Abroad Department, told Al Jazeera, “There is nothing that the health care sector in Gaza can provide for these critical cases, no medicine, no specialists, no operations or procedures, and no appropriate equipment,” adding that it is the only chance to survive. Survival for many is treatment abroad.
The ceasefire is scheduled to facilitate the exit of Palestinians in Gaza in need of medical treatment through the Rafah border crossing.
Abu Salamiya said, “The details of where patients will go to receive treatment are still unclear. 5,300 Gazans who left for treatment since October 2023 went to Arab and European countries, as well as the United States.”
Patients die every day
According to Abu Salmiya, there are 20,000 sick and wounded Palestinians in Gaza who need treatment, including 12,000 in a miserable condition.
He added that about 6,000 people injured in the war need urgent treatment in facilities abroad, and this includes about 4,000 amputees, and more than 2,000 cases suffering from serious injuries to the spine and spinal cord, which led to paralysis.
In a speech he delivered at the United Nations Security Council meeting on January 3, the representative of the World Health Organization in the West Bank and Gaza, Dr. Rick Pepperkorn, said that more than a quarter of the 105,000 civilians who were injured during the 15-month Israeli bombing of Gaza – They face “life-changing injuries.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk described hospitals as “battlefields,” citing World Health Organization figures indicating 654 attacks on health care facilities, leading to the death of 886 people and the injury of 1,349 others.
According to the organization, more than a thousand health care workers have been killed since October 2023, adding more pressure to the exhausted health care system, as only 16 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning, and only 1,800 beds are available.
Abu Salamiya said, “We are losing patients who suffer from conditions that we could have dealt with easily had it not been for the war. We have lost approximately 25% of our patients who are undergoing dialysis. Children who suffer from heart disease die every day in incubators, because we cannot perform operations.” “Up to 20 patients with curable diseases die every day in front of helpless staff.”
The official added that exiting the Gaza Strip for these critical cases was an “arduous and useless process,” especially since the closure of the Rafah crossing.
Abu Salamiya said that the restrictions imposed by Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing (between Gaza and Israel) meant that many patients were not allowed to leave despite receiving the green light. For example, infants were allowed to leave, but without their mothers.
Only 490 medical cases have been allowed to leave the territories since last May, and Abu Salamiya commented, saying, “Out of 12,000 critical cases, 490 cases are nothing.”
According to Abu Salmiya, the ceasefire must be accompanied by the flow of resources and the ease of patients leaving. He said, “We urgently need plastic and burn surgeons, and orthopedic reconstruction consultants, in addition to consultants in neurosurgery, vascular surgery, pediatric surgery, thoracic surgery, maxillofacial surgery, and cardiac surgery.” .
Abu Salamiya also called on the World Health Organization, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt to “ensure the safe and timely departure of medical cases that will be transferred to hospitals around the world, taking into account that most of them have lost their travel documents amid the war and displacement.”
Thousands of bodies under the rubble
The truce represents an opportunity to work to recover thousands of bodies of martyrs under the rubble, which the continuous Israeli bombing did not allow for their recovery during the past months.
In May 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported from the Palestinian Civil Defense in a statement that an estimated more than 10,000 people were missing under the rubble in Gaza, and that they were facing enormous challenges in recovering bodies, including a lack of equipment and heavy machinery. And individuals.
The Palestinian Civil Defense warned at the time that it could take up to 3 years to recover the bodies using the primitive tools available to them.
This number was last May, and today it is estimated to be higher.