Gaza: Guterres ‘shocked and saddened’ by deadly airstrikes in Al Mawasi, as WHO and partners support health response
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said through his spokesman late Saturday that he was “shocked and saddened by the loss of life”.
Israeli officials said the strike was a “precision” strike targeting senior Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif and his deputy Rafa Salama.
The airstrike took place near the city of Khan Younis, an area designated by the Israeli military as a safe zone for civilians.
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said reports indicated the attack took place in a densely populated area.designated as a humanitarian area to shelter displaced people“ .
“This highlights that nowhere is safe in Gaza.”, he stressed. “The Secretary-General condemns the killing of civilians, including women and children.”
The Secretary-General again stressed that there must be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, and the release of all hostages “immediately and unconditionally”.
In a post on X, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 134 “critically injured” people had been admitted to the nearby Nasser Medical Complex “which is overwhelmed by the influx”.
Many hospitals are treating the injured.
WHO staff are at the hospital along with two emergency medical teams to help treat the injured, he added.
“We have deployed 50 rollaway beds and 50 stretchers to increase hospital capacity while our spare trauma supplies and medicines are being used to save lives.”
Some of the injured were also taken to a field hospital run by the International Medical Corps in Deir Al Balah, where WHO has provided supplies to meet the urgent needs of about 120 others. He said other NGO field hospitals had also received patients in need of urgent treatment.
Senior Communications Officer, United Nations Refugee Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Louise Wateridge, tweeted the heartbreaking video from Al Nasser hospital on Saturday afternoon local time, where staff were “mopping up pools of blood with just water”.
She described children lying on blood-stained mattresses “traumatized by the loss of siblings. Some were missing limbs. Many had life-changing injuries.”
‘senseless massacre’
UN independent expert monitoring human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese, said in a post on X said she was “horrified” by the number of deaths and injuries in air strikes on what an Israeli military official said was an active Hamas compound, in an “open area”.
Hamas said reports that Israel targeted two of its senior military commanders were “false”.
Regarding the Israeli attack, which she described as “another senseless massacre” of civilians, Special Rapporteur Albanese tweeted that “The justification is always the same: ‘targeting Palestinian militants’.”
Officials from the Gaza civil defense authority also reported that at least 20 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a prayer center inside the Shati camp for displaced people, west of Gaza City on Saturday.
Listen to UNRWA’s Louise Wateridge describe it here United Nations News what happened earlier this week in Gaza City, after a week-long Israeli offensive there.
