The World Health Organization said that it documented 427 attacks launched by Israel on health facilities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, since the beginning of the war on October 7.

The organization explained that 203 of those attacks occurred in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of 560 people in Gaza and 6 people in the West Bank, in addition to wounding 718 others in Gaza and 40 in the West Bank.

The United Nations organization called for the protection of health facilities and civilians in Palestine.

The Israeli occupation intensified its targeting of hospitals in the Gaza Strip during its aggression against the Strip, bombing many of them and imposing a siege on a number of others. It stormed the Shifa Medical Complex - the largest hospital in the Strip - and forced the medical staff and patients to evacuate it. It also blew up some of its facilities, before withdrawing from it on Friday. The past, about 10 days after it was stormed.

The occupation army also besieged the Indonesian hospital and bombed it for days before storming it last Friday, hours before the temporary humanitarian truce took effect.

At the time, the director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Muhammad Zaqout, confirmed to Al Jazeera that 250 people were still inside the Indonesian hospital, after the occupation army forcibly removed hundreds of patients from the hospital.

Last month, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that all hospitals in northern Gaza were out of service, due to the Israeli bombing and the depletion of fuel and medical supplies.

Warning of a health disaster

Yesterday, Wednesday, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned of a health catastrophe in Gaza, and said, “The current living conditions in the Strip and the lack of health care may cause diseases that will kill a greater number of those killed as a result of the Israeli bombing of the Strip.”

The Director of the Health Organization pointed out that about 1.3 million people in Gaza are currently living in shelters, and stressed that “there is now an urgent need for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, because the matter has become a matter of life and death for civilians.”

He explained that overcrowding, lack of food and water, basic hygiene requirements, poor sanitation and waste management, and difficulty obtaining medicines are factors that have led to tens of thousands of people becoming infected with various diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, diarrhea, skin rashes, jaundice, and other health afflictions and diseases.

The Israeli occupation has imposed a stifling siege on Gaza since October 7, cutting off electricity and water from its residents and preventing the entry of food, medicine and fuel supplies.

However, the temporary humanitarian truce, which began on Friday, November 24, and was extended twice, enabled the entry of some relief, medical, and fuel aid into the besieged sector, but many parties confirm that this aid only meets a small portion of the population’s needs.