The World Health Organization (WHO) joins the wider United Nations in appealing to Israel to immediately rescind orders for the evacuation of over 1 million people living north of Wadi Gaza. A mass evacuation would be disastrous—for patients, health workers and other civilians left behind or caught in the mass movement.

Paramedics transfer injured Palestinian children to the hospital following Israeli airstrikes civilian areas in northern Gaza, Friday 14, 2023 (Photo: WAFA)

At around midnight on Thursday, the Israeli military ordered about 1.1 million people in the northern part of the Gaza Strip to evacuate southwards within 24 hours, ahead of military operations. As of 21:00, it is estimated that tens of thousands have fled. Prior to the order, over 400,000 Palestinians had been internally displaced due to the hostilities.

Israeli bombardments from the air, sea, and land have continued and intensified across the Gaza Strip for the seventh consecutive day. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, between 18:30 on Thursday and 14:00 on Friday, 382 people were killed and 1,120 others injured in Gaza. In total, 1,799 have been killed and 7,388 injured in Gaza since 7 October.

Palestinian armed groups in Gaza continued firing of indiscriminate rockets towards Israeli population centers. As of 21:00, no new Israeli fatalities have been reported. According to Israeli official sources, at least 1,300 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel since 7 October and at least 3,436 have been injured, the vast majority during the initial massacre carried out by Hamas. 

According WHO, “With ongoing airstrikes and closed borders, civilians have no safe place to go. Almost half of the population of Gaza is under 18 years of age. With dwindling supplies of safe food, clean water, health services, and without adequate shelter, children and adults, including the elderly, will all be at heightened risk of disease.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has informed WHO that it is impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients without endangering their lives. Vulnerable patients include those who are critically injured or dependent on life support. Moving them amid hostilities puts their lives at immediate risk.

The two Ministry of Health hospitals in the North of Gaza that continue to be operational, have greatly exceeded their combined 760-bed capacity with severe overcrowding. Of the thousands of patients with injuries and other conditions receiving care in hospitals, there are hundreds that are severely wounded and over 100 who require critical care. These are the sickest of the sick. Many thousands more, also with wounds or other health needs, cannot access any kind of care. Furthermore, the four Ministry of Health hospitals in the south of Gaza are already at or beyond capacity, and lack the critical care capacity and supplies needed to treat additional patients.

The lack of medical supplies is already endangering patients and hampering health workers. Supplies which WHO had pre-positioned in Gaza have mostly been consumed and the WHO asks for the immediate establishment of a humanitarian corridor for their onward, safe delivery to health care facilities in Gaza, including via Rafah.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres urges Israel in a New York Times opinion piece on Friday to “reconsider” its warning to civilians in Gaza that they should leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip within 24 hours. “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” a UN spokesperson said. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”

Also, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says that a plan by Israel to expel more than one million people out of northern Gaza in a single day was “utterly impossible to implement.” “I am saying that, representing the official position of the European Union… [the evacuation plan] is utterly, utterly impossible to implement,” Borrell tells a press conference in Beijing on the final day of a three-day diplomatic visit to China. “To imagine that you could move one million people in 24 hours in a situation like Gaza can only be a humanitarian crisis,” he adds.