Gaza City, January 24 (RHC)-- More than 38,000 Palestinian children have been orphaned by Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, a health ministry official said on Thursday. Zaher al-Wahidi said that some 32,151 children lost their fathers, 4,417 lost their mothers, and 1,918 lost both parents.
“At least 13,901 women were also widowed by the war,” the official said. “These figures reflect the extent of the pain that the people of Gaza have suffered, which requires everyone to work urgently to alleviate the suffering of orphans and affected families and rebuild their lives,” he added.
Israel’s 15-month war in Gaza displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million inhabitants, forcing many to live in meagre conditions in tents as bombs rained down.
The al-Awda Hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza said Thursday that Israel carried out 520 attacks on hospitals in Gaza during the 15-month war. More than 100 ambulance teams were targeted, 2,260 medical staff arrested, and six workers at the hospital were killed during the Israeli military’s siege of the facility.
The health system in the Palestinian territory was largely destroyed by more than 15 months of Israeli campaign of death and destruction.
The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital said Thursday Israeli authorities had again extended a ban on Dr. Hussam Abu Safia from meeting his lawyers until February 6th. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was abducted on December 27, 2024 when Israeli forces stormed the bombed-out hospital. All medical staff, patients and their relatives were taken out at gunpoint and transferred to an unknown location.
The last photo of Abu Safiya showed him walking alone towards a row of Israeli tanks that had amassed outside the facility. Abu Safiya is understood to be held in the Sde Teiman military prison, notorious for torture.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on Israel to release the well-known director in the besieged Gaza Strip. The UN agency says it has received no updates on his safety since.
[ SOURCE: PRESS TV and NEWS AGENCIES ]
