Below, we link readers into recent news on the health impacts of the war on Gaza, as well as responses from health and humanitarian agencies and organisations. The toll on journalists is also covered.
Statement by UN Women: Six months into the war on Gaza, over 10,000 women have been killed, among them an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned (16 April)
As the war on Gaza reached its six-month mark, it continues to be a war on women. Women who have survived have been displaced, widowed, and are facing starvation. More than one million women and girls in Gaza have almost no food, no access to safe water, latrines, washrooms, or sanitary pads, with disease growing amidst inhumane living conditions.
Since the start of the war, UN Women has been documenting the experiences of women in Gaza in a series of gender alerts that look at various aspects of how the war is impacting the daily lives of women and girls, including food, water, shelter, health, and protection. This new alert is the latest in this series, and it focuses on water, sanitation, and hygiene services, which are integral to women’s health, dignity, safety, and privacy.
Statement by UNICEF Communication Specialist Tess Ingram: Children disproportionately wearing the scars of the war in Gaza (16 April)
“I left Gaza yesterday after spending two weeks there. It was my second mission into Gaza this year. By far, what struck me most about this mission was the number of wounded children. Not just in the hospitals, but on the streets. In their makeshift shelters. Going about their now permanently altered lives. Over the last six months, a staggering number of children have been wounded amid intense and often indiscriminate attacks, their lives forever changed by the horrors of war.”
UN News: Humanitarians locked in aid delivery ‘dance’ to avert famine in Gaza (16 April)
“The vast majority of schools have been destroyed and there is not a single university that is standing in Gaza. It will take years to bring back students to school, and you can imagine what is the implication for that,” said the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories, Andrea de Domenico.
Columbia Journalism Review: A deadly six months for a press at war (8 April)
“Journalists in Gaza have recently reported that other civilians don’t want to be in their physical vicinity for fear they will be targeted. That fear, needless to say, is shared by the journalists themselves.”
Previously at Croakey
- Senior doctors and child health experts appeal for an end to the war on children in Gaza
- New report details how Gaza is being destroyed
- “Silence becomes complicity”: MPs and other health professionals urged to take stand on Gaza
- “The question is no longer whether Palestinians will starve to death in a famine, but how many will do so”
- World leaders put on notice over Gaza, amid “war on children”
- As children starve to death in Gaza, health and medical academics urge colleagues to speak up
- Australian academics call on their universities to demand ceasefire, amid fears about famine, disease and scholasticide in Gaza
- “To those speaking out for the people of Gaza – thank you for not looking the other way”: Dr Sophie Scamps
- As Australia and other countries put pressure on Israel, health and medical organisations describe horrific conditions in Gaza
- As humanitarian nightmare escalates in Gaza, and the world enters “an age of chaos”, we must work harder for peace
- As global leaders and aid groups speak up about “catastrophic crisis” in Gaza, health professionals are under pressure to remain silent
- Health workers and agencies document the war’s wide-ranging impacts on people in Gaza
- From Gaza: finding words for the unimaginable
- Health leaders join growing calls for permanent ceasefire in Gaza and Israel
- As the people in Gaza experience a “living hell”, medical and humanitarian leaders step up pressure for a permanent ceasefire
- This doctor is urging medical leadership on ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, as United Nations warns of threat to global security
- Amid catastrophic health threats in Gaza, health leaders urge a permanent ceasefire
- Amid ongoing health catastrophe in Gaza, why the silence?
- As Gaza hospitals become “scenes of death, devastation, and despair”, global community urged to act for peace
- Doctors who work with refugees urge medical organisations to speak up for a ceasefire in Gaza
- “Worse every day”: toll mounts in Gaza, including for children and health workers
- “This cannot go on” – a cry for an end to intolerable suffering
- Medical organisation publishes open letter expressing “extreme concern” at Australia’s failure to support ceasefire in Gaza
- Health sector urged to speak out for ceasefire in Gaza
- Calls for ceasefire amid catastrophe in Gaza – “every child everywhere deserves peace”
