Two workers from the Doctors Without Borders group were killed early last week by Israeli forces, according to Truthout, a non-profit news organization.
Christopher Lockyear, head of Doctors Without Borders, a charity that provides humanitarian medical care, stated his fear of continued assaults on healthcare workers in Gaza by Israeli forces in an address to a United Nations Security Council.
According to the World Health Organization, Israel has carried out nearly 600 attacks on healthcare facilities in both Gaza and the West Bank since the conflict began in October.
In addition to the physical wounding of children, repeated displacement and witnessing family members blown apart are significant contributors to the decrease in the state of being.
“These psychological injuries have led children as young as five to tell us they would prefer to die,” Lockyear says.
He continues that a new acronym has been added by medical teams serving in Gaza, WCNSF: wounded child, no surviving family.
Tuesday, Feb. 20, marked the third time the United States rejected a U.N. Security Council call for a full cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
The U.S was the only country to veto among the 15-member council, with the United Kingdom abstaining, and fears the presented negotiations would interfere with the release of Israel hostages, CBS News stated.
While the U.S. has repeatedly presented its own resolution, it is only calling for a temporary cease-fire, significantly jeopardizing appropriate humanitarian response, specifically for the waning healthcare system in Gaza.
Irfan Galaria, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who volunteered in Rafah, a Palestinian city in southern Gaza, told The Los Angeles Times he had to use “a Civil War-era tool, essentially a segment of barbed wire,” to perform amputations.
According to The Hill, 13 hospitals are operating in Gaza, about a third of the hospitals that operated before Oct. 7. The number is likely closer to nine.