UNRWA has issued a stark warning about the disintegration of Gaza’s health response, as Israeli bombardment and an ongoing siege continue to cripple medical services across the Strip. With hospitals destroyed, fuel supplies blocked, and aid workers under threat, the capacity to treat the wounded and prevent further deaths is rapidly vanishing.

In a statement released Saturday, the agency described a dire situation in which even basic health operations are becoming impossible. The destruction of medical infrastructure, coupled with restrictions on the entry of life-saving supplies and fuel, has brought Gaza’s already battered healthcare system to the brink. UNRWA noted that the safe movement of personnel is increasingly impossible, further paralysing relief efforts.

Healthcare workers are now forced to make impossible decisions, choosing who gets treated and who does not. Emergency surgeries are performed without anaesthesia, while newborns cling to life in makeshift wards without electricity. Patients with chronic conditions go without treatment, and those injured in relentless airstrikes face delays that turn survivable wounds into death sentences.

For the more than two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, access to healthcare is no longer a right, it’s a vanishing hope. As the world watches, the destruction of Gaza’s health system unfolds not as a consequence of war, but as a weapon within it.