Geneva:
An Israeli military incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah could lead to a “bloodbath”, the World Health Organization warned on Friday as it announced contingency plans.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to crush remaining Hamas fighters in Rafah, where much of Gaza's population has taken refuge after nearly seven months of war.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of possible dire consequences for the 1.2 million people sheltered in Rafah.
“WHO is deeply concerned that a large-scale military operation in Rafah, Gaza, could lead to a massacre and further weaken an already broken healthcare system,” Tedros said on X, formerly Twitter.
In a statement, the WHO announced emergency measures but warned that “the broken health care system would not be able to cope with the increase in casualties and deaths that an incursion into Rafah would cause.”
“This emergency plan consists of Band-Aids,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative to the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva. “It will absolutely not prevent the expected substantial excess mortality and morbidity resulting from a military operation.”
According to the WHO, most health facilities in the besieged area have been damaged or destroyed as a result of heavy Israeli bombing.
Only 12 of Gaza's 36 hospitals and 22 of 88 primary health care facilities are “partially functional,” the UN health agency said.
“As part of emergency efforts, WHO and its partners are working urgently to restore and resuscitate health systems,” the statement said.
It added that Rafah's three currently operational hospitals would become inaccessible “when hostilities increase in their vicinity”.
Instead, the WHO is working to rehabilitate South Gaza's largest hospital, the Nasser Medical Complex in nearby Khan Yunis, and establish additional medical sites.
“The ailing healthcare system will not be able to withstand the potential scale of devastation that the raid will cause,” Peeperkorn said.
A military operation in Rafah could trigger a new wave of displacement, leading to more overcrowding, limited access to food, water and sanitation and more disease outbreaks, he added.
In its statement, the WHO called for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire and the removal of obstacles to the delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance in and through Gaza, on the scale needed.”
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said a military operation in Rafah “could lead to a massacre”.
“For organizations already struggling to provide humanitarian aid in Gaza, a ground invasion would deal a disastrous blow,” he told reporters.
“Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death.”
The bloodiest Gaza war ever began after an unprecedented attack on southern Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Agents also took about 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza. The military says 35 of them are dead.
Israel's brutal military retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza – most of them women and children – in the Hamas-controlled area, according to the Health Ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)