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The Israeli war on Gaza displaced most of the Strip's 2.2 million residents and created a stifling humanitarian crisis that included severe shortages of food, water and medicine.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip, which has left tens of thousands of civilians martyred and wounded, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive infrastructure destruction.

After the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, South Africa filed a lawsuit against the International Court of Justice, accusing it of committing genocide crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Below are some important facts about the situation in the Gaza Strip:

Mass exodus

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that about 1.7 million people, or more than 75% of the population, were displaced inside Gaza, and many of them were forced to be displaced more than once.

Last month, Israel intensified its bombing of the city of Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, where the city is crowded with about 1.5 million people.

Most of the residents currently living in Rafah were displaced from their homes in the northern Gaza Strip to escape the Israeli war that began on October 7.

Health and hospitals

The World Health Organization says most of the Strip's 36 hospitals have stopped operating.

She added that only 12 of these hospitals are partially functioning, 6 of which are in the north of the Gaza Strip and 6 in the south, while Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis is operating at a minimum.

Richard Peppercorn, the World Health Organization's representative in Gaza and the West Bank, said on Tuesday that more than 8,000 people need to be transferred out of Gaza to receive treatment.

He added that about 6,000 people need to leave the Gaza Strip due to war-related injuries and diseases, while 2,000 suffer from cancer and other serious chronic diseases.

Last Sunday, a team from the World Health Organization and its partners visited Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, to deliver supplies for the first time since the start of hostilities.

Pepperkorn described the situation at Al Awda Hospital as “particularly horrific” due to the destruction of one of its buildings.

Ahmed Daher, head of the World Health Organization's sub-office in Gaza, said, "The two hospitals we visited represent the health system in general in Gaza, as they struggle to continue operating with small amounts of aid, which makes them barely functioning to serve those in need."

"Both hospitals faced a shortage of fuel, energy and specialized staff. The majority of people admitted to the two hospitals were suffering from shock," he added.

The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Sunday that at least 15 children had died over the past few days due to malnutrition and starvation at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

Most WHO requests to visit northern Gaza in January were rejected, and only 3 out of 16 requests were allowed to be facilitated.

The organization added that it was not allowed to facilitate any requests to carry out missions it led itself in the northern Gaza Strip last month.

Humanitarian aid and hunger

The Israeli occupation stopped all imports of food, drugs, energy and fuel into Gaza at the beginning of the war.

It later allowed aid shipments to enter.

But relief organizations say that security checks and the difficulty of moving through a war zone severely hamper their operations.

United Nations agencies say that malnutrition rates among children in northern Gaza are “extremely high,” about three times higher than in the south of the Strip, where more aid is available.

“When children start dying of hunger, it should be a warning like no other,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

He added, "If not now, when is the right time to do our best, declare a state of emergency, and flood Gaza with the aid it needs?"

Pepperkorn of the World Health Organization said that one in every 6 children under the age of two suffers from acute malnutrition in northern Gaza.

Calls for Israel to make more efforts to confront the humanitarian crisis have increased since the killing of Palestinians who were gathering to obtain aid in Gaza last month.

Health authorities in Gaza said that 118 people were killed by Israeli fire in the incident, which they described as a massacre.

The US military carried out the first airdrop of food aid to Gaza residents on Saturday, and plans to carry out more.

The airdrop is seen as the latest sign that the United States has begun to cross diplomatic paths with Israel, which the United Nations and other aid agencies complain has blocked or restricted aid access. Israel denies obstructing humanitarian access.

Source: Reuters