Gaza Health System ‘Completely Obliterated’, Says UN Expert

02 April 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians inspect the damage at Al-Shifa Hospital complex, following a two-week military operation by the Israeli army in Gaza City. (dpa)
02 April 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians inspect the damage at Al-Shifa Hospital complex, following a two-week military operation by the Israeli army in Gaza City. (dpa)
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Gaza Health System ‘Completely Obliterated’, Says UN Expert

02 April 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians inspect the damage at Al-Shifa Hospital complex, following a two-week military operation by the Israeli army in Gaza City. (dpa)
02 April 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians inspect the damage at Al-Shifa Hospital complex, following a two-week military operation by the Israeli army in Gaza City. (dpa)

Israel's war in Gaza has from the start been a "war on the right to health" and has "obliterated" the Palestinian territory's health system, a UN expert said on Monday.

Tlaleng Mofokeng, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health, accused Israel of treating human rights as an "a la carte menu".

Just days into the war that has been raging in Gaza since Hamas's unprecedented attacks inside Israel on October 7, "the medical infrastructure was irreparably damaged", she told reporters in Geneva.

Amid the unrelenting Israeli bombardment of Gaza, healthcare providers had for months been working under dire conditions with very limited access to medical supplies, she said.

"This has been a war on the right to health from the beginning," said Mofokeng, who is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

"The health system in Gaza has been completely obliterated and the right to health has been decimated at every level".

There has been growing global opposition to Israel's offensive in Gaza, which has turned vast areas of the densely populated territory into rubble and sparked a dire humanitarian crisis including warnings of famine.

The Israeli offensive began after the October 7 attack, which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

'Intentionally imposing famine'

Its hospitals, which are protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly come under attack.

Israel has accused Hamas of using them as command centers and to hold hostages abducted on October 7, claims denied by the gunmen.

On Sunday, Gaza's civil defense said its teams had discovered 50 bodies buried in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza's main southern city of Khan Younis.

And the World Health Organization said earlier this month that Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, had been reduced to ashes by an Israeli siege, leaving an "empty shell" with many bodies.

"The destruction of healthcare facilities continues to catapult to proportions yet to be fully quantified," said Mofokeng, a medical doctor from South Africa.

The expert said she had received no response from Israel to the concerns she had raised about the situation, and that she had not been able to visit the Palestinian territory, nor Israel.

But she said it was obvious that Israel was "killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its bombardments".

"They are also knowingly and intentionally imposing famine, prolonged malnutrition and dehydration", the expert added, accusing Israel of "genocide".

The current situation in Gaza, she said, "is completely incompatible with the right to health".



Türkiye Resolves Residency Dispute of Exiled Brotherhood Judge Sharaby

Egyptian judge Waleed Sharaby (Facebook)
Egyptian judge Waleed Sharaby (Facebook)
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Türkiye Resolves Residency Dispute of Exiled Brotherhood Judge Sharaby

Egyptian judge Waleed Sharaby (Facebook)
Egyptian judge Waleed Sharaby (Facebook)

An exiled Egyptian judge affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood said he ended an open-ended hunger strike after Turkish authorities intervened to resolve his residency status, following a public plea to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Waleed Sharaby, who fled to Türkiye in 2016 after being sentenced in Egypt, announced on Facebook late Thursday that he was halting his protest, which began outside a police station where he had been staging a sit-in.

He said the hunger strike was in response to Turkish authorities preventing him from leaving the country and refusing to renew his residency for nearly two years.

Sharaby claimed Turkish security services had acted on pressure from Egypt’s intelligence services, prompting him to appeal directly to Erdogan. He did not provide evidence for the alleged interference.

Moreover, Sharaby said he ended a two-day hunger strike and sit-in protest in Türkiye after receiving a call from a senior Turkish official who pledged to resolve his legal and residency issues.

Sharaby wrote on Facebook that he returned home and resumed eating on Thursday after the official, whose identity he did not disclose, invited him to a meeting and assured him that part of the issue would be resolved soon. “We may succeed in fully resolving the matter following this initial step,” he said.

Sharaby, who fled Egypt in 2016 after court rulings against him, began his hunger strike on Wednesday outside a police station in protest over what he described as Turkish authorities’ refusal to renew his residency for nearly two years and a travel ban that prevented him from leaving the country.

According to sources, Turkish authorities briefly detained him on Wednesday while attempting to depart the country, citing alleged financial violations involving Turkish citizens. He was held for a day before being released, after which he launched his protest.

During his sit-in, Sharaby publicly appealed to Erdogan via Facebook, asking for a personal meeting or for the issue to be referred to the appropriate authorities.

He claimed he had been subjected to “severe harassment” and travel restrictions, including pressure on a business he owns in Türkiye and a ban on leaving the country to seek asylum, reportedly in a European state, where his wife and children relocated nearly two years ago.

Turkish authorities have not publicly commented on the case. Türkiye has hosted several exiled members of the Muslim Brotherhood following the group's ouster from power in Egypt in 2013, though Ankara has since moved to restore ties with Cairo.

Sources close to Sharaby said Turkish authorities have agreed to grant him humanitarian residency, allowing him to remain in the country permanently despite the expiry of his Egyptian passport.

The move aligns with similar measures taken for other members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is designated a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government.