A United Nations report has found that Israeli strikes on and near hospitals in Gaza had left healthcare in the Palestinian territory on the verge of collapse.
The report by the UN human rights office said such strikes raised grave concerns about Israel's compliance with international law.
"Israel's pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza, and associated combat, pushed the healthcare system to the brink of total collapse, with catastrophic effect on Palestinians' access to health and medical care," the UN human rights office said in a statement.
Its 23-page report - 'Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza' - looked at the period from 7 October 2023 to 30 June 2024.
It said that during this time, there were at least 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, claiming significant casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians and causing significant damage to, if not the complete destruction of, civilian infrastructure.
The report noted that medical personnel and hospitals are specifically protected under international humanitarian law, provided they do not commit, or are not used to commit, acts harmful to the enemy outside their humanitarian function.
It found that Israel's repeated claims that Gaza hospitals were being improperly used for military purposes by Palestinian groups "vague".
"Insufficient information has so far been made publicly available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information," the report said.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Gaza hospitals had become a "death trap".
"As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap," he said.
"The protection of hospitals during warfare is paramount and must be respected by all sides, at all times."
The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented Hamas-led 7 October 2023, attack on Israel.
That resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 45,500 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
The report concluded with a call for credible investigations into the incidents detailed, and said they had to be independent given the "limitations" of Israel's justice system in respect of the conduct of its armed forces.
"It is essential that there be independent, thorough and transparent investigations of all of these incidents, and full accountability for all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law which have taken place," said Turk.
"All medical workers arbitrarily detained must be immediately released.
"It must also be a priority for Israel, as the occupying power, to ensure and facilitate access to adequate healthcare for the Palestinian population, and for future recovery and reconstruction efforts to prioritise the restoration of the medical capacity which has been destroyed over the last 14 months of intense conflict."
The Al Awda Hospital is one of the few functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, but it is severely damaged due to recent airstrikes, low on medical supplies and struggling to treat patients.
Its director, Mohammed Salha, said Israeli forces are surrounding the hospital.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said that there are no oxygen units in the north, "so we have to deal with cases without oxygen cylinders now, we don’t have ICU in the north, so the people who need ICU, we need to refer them to Gaza hospital."
He said babies will die as there are no longer incubators in north Gaza and that since 19 October there are no ambulances "in the north in [the]Gaza Strip".
Dr Salha said Israel is targeting hospitals to move people, not because of Hamas, as they claim.
"They are targeting the hospitals, [it] is not related to Hamas and other bodies they are targeting because they know if there is no hospitals the people will move.
"There is no Hamas people on the ground or under the ground," he said.
Potential UNWRA ban 'truly distressing'
The Executive Director of UNICEF in Ireland has said the organisation is concerned about the impending legislation that will ban UNWRA from carrying out humanitarian work in northern Gaza.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Peter Power described the current situation as "truly distressing".
"We are deeply, deeply concerned about this legislation. If the infrastructure of UNWRA is taken away inside Gaza, you’re talking about a complete and total collapse of any humanitarian systems," he said.
"That is a truly unimaginable, apocalyptic scenario if that happens. The stakes are very, very high here for hundreds of thousands of people, families and children," Mr Power said.
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Mr Power dismissed claims that the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, which has been attacked numerous times in recent weeks, had ties to terrorism after he was recently captured and detained.
"The Human Rights agency of the United Nations are just basically saying that those allegations are unsubstantiated, and they are increasingly vague. The attacks remain of a systematic nature," he said.
"Hospitals are attacked on a systematic basis and that is in breach of international and humanitarian law. People will need to be held ultimately accountable for this because for tens of thousands of people, there’s only two hospitals now in the north of Gaza that are in any way operating.
"Tens of thousands of people rely on these hospitals, and are not getting humanitarian or medical assistance, and that means people are dying. That’s the problem," Mr Power added.
Despite ongoing talks regarding a ceasefire, Mr Power said that many people remain pessimistic about the situation.
"We’re all pessimistic because there’s no sign of a ceasefire on the horizon unfortunately. We hear of constant talks, constant breakthroughs, but we hear nothing concrete," he said.
"What the people of Gaza need now, more than anything else, is peace. It is only peace that will allow an environment where humanitarian assistance, at a huge scale, can be delivered into Gaza and delivered around Gaza. That’s what people want as we approach 2025," he added.
