WHO chief: 'Nowhere and no one is safe'

A child is killed every 10 minutes in the besieged Gaza Strip, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the United Nations Security Council on Friday, warning: "Nowhere and no one is safe."

He said that half of Gaza's 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary healthcare centres were not functioning.

Those that were still operational, he added, were way beyond their capacities.

Half of #Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 2/3 of its primary health care centres are not functioning at all.

The health system is on its knees.

I thank the @UN Security Council for the opportunity to update on the health situation in #Gaza.https://t.co/vSW0PE373T pic.twitter.com/iepH4p6pIR
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 10, 2023

"Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying. Morgues overflowing. Surgery without anesthesia. Tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals," he told the council.

"On average, a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza."

Since 7 October, the WHO has verified more than 250 attacks on healthcare sites in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, while there had been 25 attacks on healthcare sites in Israel, Tedros said.