Gaza [Palestine], April 23: At least 350 healthcare workers have been killed and 520 others injured in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, when the Israel-Hamas conflict escalated, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng said on Monday.
"We know that 520 healthcare professionals have been injured, and we know that 350 healthcare professionals, including allied healthcare workers, have been killed," Mofokeng told a press briefing.
A number of teenagers used to assist medical workers in Gazan hospitals to help them deal with the growing number of those injured and killed, but the adolescents have not been enlisted among the casualties as they were not officially registered as medical workers, the UN special rapporteur added.
"The health system in Gaza has been completely obliterated and the right to health has been decimated at every level. The conditions are incompatible with the realization of everyone to the highest attainable state of physical and mental health. The attacks, the harassment, the killings of many of my own colleagues, healthcare workers, the destruction of health facilities and the destruction of humanitarian aid organizations continue to catapult to proportions yet to be fully quantified if at all possible," Mofokeng said.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel and breached the border, attacking both civilian neighbourhoods and military bases. Nearly 1,200 people in Israel were killed and some 240 others abducted during the attack.
Israel launched retaliatory strikes, ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, and started a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters. On April 7, a new round of the Israel-Hamas talks started in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. The ceasefire proposal provided for the release of 40 Israeli hostages in exchange for 900 Palestinian prisoners as a part of a three-stage plan adopted by international mediators.(Sputnik)
Source: Qatar Tribune