Region

GENEVA/WASHINGTON — The war between Israel and Hamas is having a catastrophic impact on health in the Gaza Strip, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday. 

The UN health agency called a special session of the WHO executive board to discuss the health conditions in the Palestinian territories, with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus describing a collapsing system with medics facing an "impossible" job.

"The impact of the conflict on health is catastrophic," Tedros said in his opening remarks to the meeting in Geneva. 

“As more and more people move to a smaller and smaller area, overcrowding, combined with the lack of adequate food, water, shelter and sanitation, are creating the ideal conditions for disease to spread,” he said.

Tedros said there were worrying signs of epidemic diseases and the risk was expected to worsen with the deteriorating situation and approaching winter conditions.

“Gaza’s health system is on its knees and collapsing,” Tedros said, with only 14 out of 36 hospitals functioning with any capacity at all, and of them, only two are in the north of the coastal territory.

Only 1,400 hospital beds out of an original 3,500 are still available, while the two major hospitals in southern Gaza are operating at three times their bed capacity, running out of supplies and sheltering thousands of displaced people, Tedros added.

Tedros said that since October 7, the WHO had verified more than 449 attacks on healthcare in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and 60 attacks on healthcare in Israel. The WHO does not attribute blame for the recorded attacks.

“The work of the health workers is impossible and they are directly in the firing line,” he said.

“In summary, health needs have increased dramatically and the capacity of the health system has been reduced to one third of what it was. 

“WHO is on the ground in Gaza to support health workers who are physically and mentally exhausted, and are doing their best in unimaginable conditions.”

“There is no health without peace and no peace without health,” Tedros concluded.

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees has accused Israel of laying the groundwork for the mass expulsion of Gazans across the territory’s border into Egypt.

In an opinion piece published on Saturday in the Los Angeles Times, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini pointed to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the increasing concentration near the border of displaced civilians who fled the fighting, first in the north and then further south.

“The United Nations and several member states, including the US, have firmly rejected forcibly displacing Gazans out of the Gaza Strip,” Lazzarini said.

“But the developments we are witnessing point to attempts to move Palestinians into Egypt, regardless of whether they stay there or are resettled elsewhere.”

The widespread destruction in the Palestinian territory’s north and the resulting displacements were “the first stage of such a scenario”, he added, while forcing civilians from the southern city of Khan Yunis closer to the border was the next.

“If this path continues, leading to what many are already calling a second Nakba, Gaza will not be a land for Palestinians anymore,” Lazzarini said, using the Arabic term for the exodus or forced displacement of 760,000 Palestinians during the war that coincided with Israel’s creation in 1948.

A spokesperson for the Israeli defence ministry office responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lazzarini’s accusation.

When asked about the possibility of evacuating people into Egypt last week, a government spokesman said Israel was “focusing on getting civilians out of harm’s way inside the Gaza Strip”.

A small number of Gazans have been allowed to cross into Egypt for medical treatment, and some foreign nationals trapped in the territory at the outset of the war were also allowed to evacuate by way of the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only border not under Israeli control.

But other Palestinians are currently blocked from leaving, with the territory’s estimated 1.9 million displaced people, out of a population of 2.4 million, turning the border town of Rafah into a vast camp.

The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 sudden attack on Israel, which left 1,200 people dead and saw another 240 taken hostage, Israeli officials say.

The country vowed to eliminate Hamas in response, and its ensuing military campaign has killed at least 17,700 people, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Aid groups have sounded the alarm on the “apocalyptic” humanitarian situation in the narrow territory, warning it is close to being overwhelmed by disease and starvation.

DUBAI — A UN climate summit in Dubai made progress on Saturday but deep divides persisted, negotiators said, following a last-minute push by the OPEC oil cartel to block a phase-out of fossil fuels.

OPEC drew outrage from green-minded countries and activists when it called on members to block an emerging declaration that would seek to wind down extraction of the oil, coal and gas which are fuelling the climate emergency.

But both the president of the COP28 summit, Sultan Al Jaber, and top oil importer China said they saw headway as talks go into a marathon phase before the scheduled close on Tuesday.

"The window is closing to close the gaps. We are making progress, but not fast enough and not satisfying enough," Jaber said.

"Now is the time to put aside self-interest for the common interest," Jaber told delegates in a Saturday night session, without publicly endorsing any option.

Jaber said he hopes to submit a package for review by Monday morning.

A third draft of a deal, released on Friday, offers various ways to phase out fossil fuels but also includes the option to avoid the issue entirely.

China said it was working to find a solution that was “acceptable to all parties”.

“I think we’ve already had some progress on this issue and I believe we will have more progress in resolving this very soon in the coming few days,” China’s Climate Negotiator Xie Zhenhua told reporters.

“Because if we do not, if we do not resolve this issue, I don’t see much chance in having a successful COP28,” he said.

Canadian Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault told AFP he was “confident” the final text would contain language on fossil fuels, which emit planet-heating greenhouse gases.

OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais in a letter made public Friday urged the cartel’s 13 members and 10 allies to “proactively reject” any language that “targets” fossil fuels rather than emissions.

In a speech read in his name to the summit, Al Ghais said there was “no single solution” for sustainable energy.

“We need realistic approaches to tackle emissions, ones that enable economic growth, help eradicate poverty and increase resilience at the same time,” the speech said.

Teresa Ribera, the ecology transition minister of current European Union president Spain, said it was “quite a disgusting thing” for OPEC countries to be “pushing against getting the bar where it has to be”.

French Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said the OPEC statement left her “stunned” and “angry”.

“I want this COP to mark the beginning of the end of fossil fuels... It’s what science demands and what our kids deserve,” said EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.

Planetary crisis 

The planet has endured a string of record-breaking temperatures and intensifying storms and heatwaves, with efforts far off track on an ambition set at the 2015 Paris summit to limit warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels.

“1.5 is not negotiable, and that means an end to fossil fuels,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, which like many low-lying ocean nations fears its very survival as melting ice brings up water levels.

A negotiator from a country in favour of a fossil fuel exit said the Arab group of nations was the only one to take a strong position against a phase-out, although cracks were seen with Arab states that do not produce oil.

A person working for the summit president’s office played down objections by Saudi Arabia, saying it was normal for nations to push hard at the end.

“I don’t feel that we’re at that point where one is sticking their head above the parapet and being the troublemaker,” the person said on condition of anonymity.

Colombia, whose left-leaning government has aggressively promoted environmentalism, warned that COP28 was also failing on raising financing for countries to adapt to the effects of climate change.

If countries block “goals on adaptation but at the same time oppose the phase out fossil fuel, they need to be held accountable. And that accountability should be seen financially”, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said.

Next year’s climate talks are likely to be held in another major producer of fossil fuels as Azerbaijan announced it had secured a consensus to host COP29.

DOHA — Mediation efforts are continuing to secure a new Gaza ceasefire despite ongoing Israeli bombardment that is "narrowing the window" for a successful outcome, Qatar's prime minister said on Sunday.

"Our efforts as the state of Qatar along with our partners are continuing. We are not going to give up," Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the Doha Forum more than two months into the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

Qatar was a key mediator in negotiations that resulted in a seven-day truce, which saw scores of Israeli hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and humanitarian aid, until it ended at the start of the month.

Israel declared war on Gaza Hamas after the resistance group’s surprise October 7 attack on Israel and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli occupation figures. The Israeli offensive has killed at least 17,700 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

"We are going to continue, we are committed to have hostages released, but we are also committed to stop the war," the Qatari premier said.

But, he added, "we are not seeing the same willingness from both parties" and "the continuation of the bombardment is just narrowing this window for us".

Addressing the Doha Forum earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Security Council was "paralysed by geostrategic divisions" that were undermining solutions to the conflict.

UN chief's pledge 

The body's "authority and credibility were severely undermined" by its delayed response to the war, he said two days after a US veto prevented a resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire.

"I reiterated my appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared," he told the forum.

"Regrettably, the Security Council failed to do it," he added.

“I can promise, I will not give up.”

Guterres had convened an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after two months of fighting in Gaza.

He deployed the rarely used Article 99 of the United Nations Charter that allows the secretary-general to bring to the council’s attention “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.

The rule had not been invoked by a UN chief in decades.

In a virtual address, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday that although Moscow had condemned Hamas’ October 7 sudden attack, “we do not believe it’s acceptable to use this event for collective punishment against the millions of Palestinian people”.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the United States is as responsible as Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza.

“For the United States to block a United Nations Security Council resolution, one should hold the Americans responsible” for the deadly violence, he said.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Hundreds of makeshift tents stand in a desolate landscape at the foot of Gaza City's ruined Al Shifa hospital.

At least 30,000 people have taken refuge in its grounds between piles of rubble and waste after Israeli forces raided the medical facility last month, an AFP correspondent reported from the hospital.

Its medical equipment was heavily damaged and is now virtually unusable.

Food is scarce, too, but Gazans still come in search of what little safety a hospital — supposedly protected under international law — can afford as the shelling rumbles on.

AFP spoke to Gazans lacking everything from baby milk to tarpaulins for shelter from the rain and cold.

Mohammed Daloul arrived at Al Shifa "with great difficulty" and described shelling and shooting around the hospital.

The 38-year-old, who fled with his wife and three children, said the artillery fire had not stopped for "several days".

He was unable to take anything from his house in the ruined Zeitoun district of Gaza City's old neighbourhood.

"Our life has become a living hell, there's no electricity, no water, no flour, no bread, no medicine for the children who are all sick," he told AFP.

"All we can think about is survival", he said.

Hospital raid 

The largest hospital in bombed-out Gaza had already been under immense strain in the first stages of the war, with bodies piling up after food, fuel and anaesthetics ran out.

On November 15, Israeli forces sparked international outcry by launching a night-time raid on Al Shifa.

Several people, including the hospital director, were arrested and interrogated.

Israel invited journalists to visit a tunnel it said it had found beneath the complex, but what it achieved in the raid remained unclear.

More than two months into the war, the fighting has killed at least 17,997 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

'Death will follow us' 

An estimated 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people — about 80 per cent of the population — have been displaced, according to UN figures. Many are now in the south and running out of safe places to go.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are still believed to be in the heavily-bombed north.

On Saturday the Israeli army again told residents in the north to evacuate to safe areas — but international organisations have condemned the lack of areas free from bombardment in the narrow coastal strip.

Hospitals have been hit repeatedly. On Sunday, Gaza's health ministry reported damage from a strike at the Jordanian field hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Gazans are desperate.

Souhail Abou Dhalfa said his family sought refuge at Al Shifa after his 20-year-old son was wounded when their house was hit by relentless bombardment in Shejaiya, in the east of Gaza City.

"We put together a tent," the 56-year-old said. "We don't know if they will storm Al Shifa again, and it doesn't matter — wherever we go, death will follow us."

Raed, who gave only his first name, has been sleeping on an old blanket under the stairs near the former emergency ward.

The 24-year-old's family of nine has no money for a tent, he said.

His eight-year-old sister Manal sleeps with her head on a bundle of clothes.

Beside her, their mother keeps watch over a bottle of water, some bread and cheese.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Israel bombarded targets in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid for a ceasefire in the war with Hamas that has triggered alerts of an "apocalyptic" humanitarian situation.

Aid workers say Gaza's humanitarian system is on the verge of collapse, as disease and starvation threaten.

Washington's veto was swiftly condemned by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, whose health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,490, mostly women and children.

An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.

It added that, over a 24-hour period, 71 dead and 160 wounded had arrived at Al Aqsa hospital in Deir Al Balah after persistent bombings. Gunfire was heard and flashes of light that silhouetted palm trees were seen overnight in the city's Al Zawaida district.

The Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said it fired rockets Saturday towards Reim in southern Israel.

Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 per cent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.

At Nasser hospital in the central city of Khan Yunis, an AFP correspondent saw a child on a makeshift stretcher and others simply sitting on the floor waiting to receive care.

Outside, firefighters poured water onto the flames of a burning building partly destroyed by an Israeli strike.

‘Into the abyss’ 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres triggered the rare Security Council vote by invoking a measure unused in decades.

He sought the council’s endorsement of a ceasefire because, he said, rapidly deteriorating conditions make it “impossible for meaningful humanitarian operations”, with potentially irreversible implications for regional peace and security.

The United States on Friday vetoed the Security Council resolution.

US envoy Robert Wood said it was “divorced from reality” and “would leave Hamas in place able to repeat what it did on October 7”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said a ceasefire “would prevent the collapse” of Hamas “which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he “holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people” in Gaza after the US veto.

Avril Benoit, head of the Doctors Without Borders charity, described the US veto as a “sharp contrast to the values it professes to uphold”.

There was anger, too, at a residential area of Rafah destroyed in an Israeli strike.

“What resolution did the Security Council ever approve and was implemented for our cause and Palestinian people?” Mohammed Al Khatib asked from among the rubble.

Hamas denounced the veto as “a direct participation of the occupation in killing our people”.

Iran, which backs Hamas, warned about the possible “uncontrollable explosion in the situation of the region” after US move.

Many of the 1.9 million Gazans displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.

‘Apocalyptic’ situation 

One of only two partially operating hospitals in Gaza’s north, Al Awda, “is surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks, and fighting is ongoing in its vicinity”, the UN said.

Nearby in Jabalia district, the soil in front of shuttered shops has been dug up and turned into a cemetery where men buried more bodies.

Aid groups emphasised the worsening conditions in Gaza, where people sleep in the streets, and essentials like diapers are unavailable.

Alexandra Saieh, of Save the Children, spoke of “maggots being picked from wounds and children undergoing amputations without anaesthetic”.

The situation “is not just a catastrophe, it’s apocalyptic”, said Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reiterated Washington’s calls for Israel to do more to protect civilians.

“And we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,” he said.

Washington provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel.

Weapons ‘in a school’ 

Israel says 93 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza and two others were severely injured in a failed bid to rescue hostages. “Numerous” fighters were killed in the operation, the army said on Friday.

Hamas earlier said a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body. AFP was unable to immediately verify its authenticity.

With air, naval and ground combat continuing, the military on Saturday said troops found weapons “in a school” in Gaza City’s Shejaiya district.

In Beit Hanun, close to the northern boundary with Israel, troops struck fighter “who shot at them from an UNRWA school and a mosque”, the Israeli forces said. UNRWA is the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees.

BAGHDAD — Salvoes of rockets were launched early Friday at the US embassy in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, the mission said, the latest in a flurry of such attacks amid the Hamas-Israel war.

"A multi-rocket attack was launched at US and Coalition forces in the vicinity of Union III and the Baghdad embassy complex" without causing any reported casualties or damage, a US official said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The United States leads an international coalition battling militants in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, and its forces have come under repeated attack in recent weeks.

On Friday, there were a further five attempted strikes against US and coalition troops.

Drone or rocket attacks were launched twice against the Ain Al Asad airbase in western Iraq and three bases in Syria were targeted, according to a US military official speaking anonymously, reporting "no casualties and no damage".

The attacks come against a backdrop of the more than two-month war between US ally Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza.

The United States "strongly" condemned the attacks and called on Iraq to bring the perpetrators to justice, the State Department said in a statement.

"The many Iran-aligned militias that operate freely in Iraq threaten the security and stability of Iraq, our personnel, and our partners in the region," spokesman Matthew Miller said in the statement.

The US embassy said "two salvoes of rockets" were fired at the mission compound in Baghdad at around 4:15 am (01:15 GMT).

“Indications are the attacks were initiated by Iran-aligned militias,” said a US spokesperson.

“The Iraqi government has repeatedly committed to protect diplomatic missions as well as US military personnel, who are present in the country at Iraq’s invitation,” Miller said.

“This is non-negotiable, as is our right to self-defence.”

Balancing act 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani warned that attacks on embassies undermine the country’s security and called on security forces to bring those responsible to justice.

Brought to power by a pro-Tehran coalition, Sudani faces a difficult balancing act between the United States and Iran.

Since mid-October there have been dozens of rocket or drone strikes by pro-Iran groups against US or coalition forces in Iraq, as well as in Syria.

But Friday’s rocket attack was the first against the US embassy in Baghdad since October 7, raising regional tensions and fears of a wider conflict.

An Iraqi security official said “three Katyusha rockets targeting the American embassy fell close to the Green Zone”, near the river Tigris.

There are roughly 2,500 US troops in Iraq and about 900 in Syria as part of efforts to prevent a resurgence of Daesh.

Pro-Iran groups have justified their attacks by pointing to American support for Israel.

In Iraq, most were claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose formation of armed groups affiliated with the Hashed Al Shaabi coalition of former paramilitaries that are now integrated into Iraq’s regular armed forces.

US forces have struck Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in response.

Late on Friday, the Coordination Framework, an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shiite factions, and the largest grouping in Iraq’s parliament,  denounced the embassy attack.

It said it wanted to “preserve the security of diplomatic missions” and rejected “any terrorist attack targeting the security and sovereignty of the country”.

Sudani said Friday’s attacks were “unacceptable and unjustifiable”.

“Our security forces... will continue to protect embassies,” the Iraqi premier said.

His foreign affairs adviser, Farhad Alaaldin, said the government was “determined” to uphold Iraq’s stability.

More than 80 attacks 

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq also condemned the attack and warned of repercussions.

“Iraq cannot afford to be drawn into a wider conflict,” UNAMI said on X, formerly Twitter.

Separately, on Friday evening an explosive drone struck a civilian building in Erbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, without causing any casualties, the Kurdish counterterrorism service said without giving further details.

Washington has counted at least 84 attacks since October 17 against its forces in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks against US personnel have left at least 60 US personnel wounded, the Pentagon says.