The World Health Organization called Friday for access to patients in the Gaza strip and free passage to evacuate them for medical treatment as health workers struggle to care for the sick and wounded after 11 days of violence.
Organization spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a Geneva briefing that around 600 patients, including some with chronic conditions, needed to be referred outside of the Palestinian enclave since the start of the hostilities, but had been unable to due to crossing closures.
"It's very important that we help (people of the occupied territories) get the care they need, especially helping them get treatment outside the Gaza strip," she said.
The organization has a presence on the ground, Chaib said, but was unable to confirm whether it currently had any access from the outside. Other aid agencies have complained about limited humanitarian access and drug supplies.
Dozens of health centers were damaged during Israeli bombings earlier this month, prompting the organization to warn that facilities risked being overwhelmed.
"The capacity of the health system to respond is completely crushed," Helen Ottens-Patterson, Medecins Sans Frontieres head of mission in Gaza, told journalists earlier this week.
In an indication of the challenges ahead, she said that a Medecins Sans Frontieres team had to "wade through rubble and glass" to access a ministry of health compound earlier this week.
Aid workers have also raised concerns about a possible surge in COVID-19 infections after the latest violence, since many people displaced by bombings were crowded together for shelter.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Human Rights Council has agreed to launch an international investigation into alleged crimes committed during the 11-day conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
The independent investigation will have a broad mandate to look into all alleged violations, not just in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, but also in Israel during hostilities that were halted by a cease-fire May 21.
Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, earlier told the council that deadly Israeli strikes on Gaza might constitute war crimes and that Hamas had violated international humanitarian law by firing rockets into Israel.
Israel rejected the resolution adopted by the Geneva forum and said it would not cooperate.
"Today's shameful decision is yet another example of the U.N. Human Rights Council's blatant anti-Israel obsession," Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement accusing the forum of whitewashing "a genocidal terrorist organization."
Israel's foreign ministry said its forces acted "in accordance with international law, in defending our citizens from Hamas' indiscriminate rocket fire."
A spokesman for Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, called the group's actions "legitimate resistance" and called for "immediate steps to punish" Israel.
