“You have a population with just every health need imaginable ... (who have) been unable to get access to care ... for more than a year,” said Yara Asi, an expert in global health management and visiting scholar at the FXB Center of Health and Human Rights at Harvard.
Most of Gaza's 36 hospitals were damaged or partly destroyed by Israeli bombs, with only half still partially operational, according to the World Health Organization.
Fifteen months of war has killed more than 47,000 people, according to local health officials, displaced 90% of Gazans and reduced many areas to rubble.
Clean water is in short supply and sewers, so important for protecting public health, are badly damaged spurring worries about the spread of infectious disease.
That makes it impossible to treat everyone who needs urgent and long-term care — including an estimated 30,000 people who need ongoing rehabilitation for “life-changing injuries,” such as amputations.
