Effective "Death Sentence" Forcing Gaza Patients To Evacuate: WHO

 Effective "Death Sentence" Forcing Gaza Patients To Evacuate: WHO

One week after the bloodiest assault in Israeli history, Israel has advised Palestinians to leave northern Gaza before an anticipated ground invasion against Hamas.

Switzerland's Geneva The World Health Organization warned on Saturday that ordering the evacuation of thousands of hospital patients to facilities in the southern Gaza Strip that are already at capacity might amount to "a death sentence."

One week after the bloodiest assault in Israeli history, Israel has advised Palestinians to leave northern Gaza before an anticipated ground invasion against Hamas.

The UN health organization issued a statement saying, "WHO strongly condemns Israel's repeated commands for the evacuation of 22 hospitals receiving more than 2,000 those in northern Gaza."

"The forced evacuation of patients as well as health workers will further worsen this present humanitarian along with public health catastrophe."

Moving 2,000 patients to southern Gaza, "because health facilities are already running at their maximum capacity and will be unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number of patients, could be comparable to a death sentence," the WHO said.

Many very sick and vulnerable individuals' lives, according to the organization, "hang in the balance" right now. It included those who were receiving acute care or who needed life support, infants in incubators, those receiving haemodialysis, and pregnant women who had problems.

Others as well "all face imminent degradation of their condition or death whenever they are forced to move and are cut from receiving life-saving medical attention while being evacuated" , according to the World Health Organization.

On Saturday, Israel brutally bombed northern Gaza with more airstrikes ahead of an anticipated military attack against Hamas leaders.

The early incursion by the Islamist rebels, in which they crossed the strongly guarded border and killed more than 1,300 Palestinians with guns, knives, and fire, set off a week of Israeli attacks.

Health authorities in Gaza said that more than 2,200 people had died. Most of them were civilians, much as on the Israeli side.

According to the WHO, medical professionals in northern Gaza now have to make the "agonizing choice" of leaving critically ill patients behind, risking their own lives by staying put, or putting their patients' lives in danger while attempting to transport them to southern hospitals "that have no capacity to receive them."

"Overwhelmingly, staff members have chosen to stay behind and honour their promises as health professionals to 'do no harm'," the World Health Organization said.

"Health workers wasn't supposed to have to make such impossible choices."