News briefing
Translation and Editing: The Committee for Justice
Geneva: October 17, 2023
“All parties to the conflict and their international partners must ensure swift and unimpeded access to essential humanitarian supplies, including food, water and medicine, fuel, and electricity,” said Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health in a statement on 17 October 2023.
Mofokeng pointed out that Gaza’s medical infrastructure has suffered irreparable damage. Healthcare providers are working in dire conditions with limited access to medical supplies, and the circumstances do not allow them to provide quality healthcare on time.
111 Attacks on Healthcare Facilities:
“Humanitarian workers, physicians, civil society, human rights organisations and journalists continue to work in the region while under bombardment themselves,” the expert said.
The World Health Organization documented over 111 attacks on healthcare facilities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including 48 attacks on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of at least 12 healthcare workers.
Israeli Blockade on Essential Supplies to Gaza:
The UN Rapporteur clarified that Israel is preventing the entry of essential supplies to Gaza, including food, water, fuel, medicines, medical consumables, and equipment.
“The Gaza Strip is experiencing continuous bombardment and massive devastation,” she said. “The health sector in the enclave is at a breaking point.”
Mofokeng urged the international community for immediate intervention to prevent escalation of the conflict, an immediate ceasefire, and to protect and respect everyone’s right to health by demanding access through humanitarian corridors, and by protecting the health infrastructure and healthcare workers. She also emphasized the importance of not taking the recent escalation and display of aggression in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories out of context, stating that it represents a crushing moment of systemic and continuous severe violence that Palestinians experience daily since the occupation.
