WHO Official Pleas for Gaza's Southern Hospitals to Be Spared

Palestinians run for cover next to covered bodies after an Israeli airstrike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. (Photo by Mohammad AHMAD / AFP)
Palestinians run for cover next to covered bodies after an Israeli airstrike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. (Photo by Mohammad AHMAD / AFP)
TT

WHO Official Pleas for Gaza's Southern Hospitals to Be Spared

Palestinians run for cover next to covered bodies after an Israeli airstrike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. (Photo by Mohammad AHMAD / AFP)
Palestinians run for cover next to covered bodies after an Israeli airstrike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. (Photo by Mohammad AHMAD / AFP)

A World Health Organization official said on Tuesday that only 11, or less than a third, of Gaza's hospitals remain partially functional and pleaded for them to remain intact, Reuters said.
"In just 66 days the health system has gone from 36 functional hospitals to 11 partially functional hospitals - one in the north and 10 in the south," Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told a UN press briefing by videolink from Gaza.
"We cannot afford to lose any health care facilities or hospitals," he said. "We hope, we plea that this will not happen."



Netanyahu Warns Yemen’s Houthis of ‘Heavy Price’

Smoke rises from a power station following Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Smoke rises from a power station following Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
TT

Netanyahu Warns Yemen’s Houthis of ‘Heavy Price’

Smoke rises from a power station following Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Smoke rises from a power station following Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Houthi militias on Thursday that they “will pay a heavy price” after Israel launched strikes in Yemen in response to a missile attack from the armed group.

The Iran-backed Houthis - who have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November 2023, in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's war with Hamas - said they had attacked Tel Aviv overnight, launching two ballistic missiles and hitting "precise military targets.”

As Israeli jets were in the air, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile headed towards central Israel which destroyed a school building in Ramat Efal in the western part of Tel Aviv with what a military spokesperson described as falling shrapnel.
“After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are nearly the last remaining arm of Iran's axis of evil. They are learning and they will learn the hard way, that whoever harms Israel - pays a very heavy price for it,” Netanyahu warned.
Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah are also allies of Iran.
The Israeli attack in Yemen, involving 14 fighter jets and other aircraft, came in two waves, with a first series of strikes on the ports of Salif and Ras Issa and a second series hitting the capital Sanaa, military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
"We made extensive preparations for these operations with efforts to refine our intelligence and to optimize the strikes," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed that Israel’s “long hand” will reach the Houthi leaders.