Row Between IDF And WHO Over Israel's Warning To Evacuate Medical Warehouse
After Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Israeli Defence Force has issue notice to “remove our medical supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours” on his X (formerly twitter) account, IDF reacted by demanding a UN official “to be more accurate”.
Earlier, on Monday, the World Health Organization chief posted a statement on his X page claiming to receive notification from IDF to remove all of the organization’s supplies from their “medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours as ground operations will put it beyond use”.
Today, @WHO received notification from the Israel Defense Forces that we should remove our supplies from our medical warehouse in southern Gaza within 24 hours, as ground operations will put it beyond use.
We appeal to #Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible…
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 4, 2023
He further added that the organization appeal Israel to “withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities”.
On Tuesday, IDF hit back by saying that they never issued the alleged warning. Through a statement issued on X page of Israeli defence ministry body, COGAT (Coordination Of Government Activities in the Territories), they said the defence force said they never asked the UN body to “evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear (and in writing) to the relevant UN representatives”.
The truth is that we didn”t ask you to evacuate the warehouses and we also made it clear (and in writing) to the relevant #UN representatives.
From a #UN official we would expect, at least, to be more accurate. https://t.co/ZrXQ6ecqcd— COGAT (@cogatonline) December 4, 2023
WHO also issued a lengthy statement stating “nowhere is safe in Gaza”. Citing the warning the organisation claim to receive from Israeli occupation force and their intensified ground operation, the statement read, “the number of functioning hospitals in Gaza has dropped from 36 to 18”, and those 18, only three are able to provide basic first aid as the remaining hospitals can only deliver “partial services”.
WHO appeals for protection of the health system from further attacks and degradation of its capacity
Once again, nowhere is safe in #Gaza.
WHO is gravely concerned about the resumption of hostilities, including heavy bombardment in Gaza, and reiterates its appeal to Israel to… pic.twitter.com/b7EZ1gfddZ
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) December 4, 2023
Meanwhile the situation in Gaza is cataclysmic. The enclave has been completely pulverised to bloodied ashes since the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7th that killed 1,200 people as said my Israeli media. After asking the civilians to move from north of Gaza to south, claiming south to be rather “safe”, the occupation force is now bombing the south including the hospitals and UN installations.
Since the beginning of the war, more than 15,900 civilians were killed by the occupation force including 6,600 children, as said by Gaza Health Ministry. WHO said around 1.9 million, which is about 80 percentage of the total population has been forced to flood their home.
