Shafaq News- Gaza
Repeated delays in bringing life-saving medicines, prosthetics and other medical supplies into Gaza risk having “devastating consequences” for Palestinians in urgent need of treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Reinhilde Van De Weerdt, the WHO’s representative in Palestine, explained that approved aid can enter Gaza only through Kerem Shalom, at the southern end of the enclave. Rafah, also in the south, is open only for limited movement of people, including patients seeking medical treatment abroad.
“A truck full of non-priority supplies or the right supplies arriving too late, doesn’t save lives. That’s the question that actually matters,” she told Al-Jazeera, urging the Israeli authorities to “release the pressure on medical supplies.”
Van De Weerdt revealed that one shipment of prosthetics and assistive devices had been rejected four times over the past six months.
“Every rejection means another delay for someone who has already lost a limb and is simply waiting for the chance to walk again,” she said, adding that medicines “by contrast, move relatively well,” with almost 87% approved.
Four other main entry points into Gaza —Kissufim, Gate 96, Erez and Erez West— remain closed and under total Israeli control.
With winter approaching, Van De Weerdt stressed that the need to get supplies into Gaza was becoming even more urgent.
“Almost two million people are in need of shelter to protect against the cold and the risk of flooding, exposing people to serious health and safety risks, let alone their dignity,” she said.
Warning that people in Gaza face a heightened risk of preventable disease outbreaks because of the lack of safe shelter and clean water, she drew attention to the high number of rats, whose bites can transmit infection and pose another threat. The destruction of public health laboratories has also made such risks harder to track.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cautioned last week about serious public health risks from the accumulation of solid waste in Gaza City. It said sanitation gains remained fragile because of unreliable access to heavy machinery, engine oil, spare parts and funding for fuel.
In #Gaza, humanitarian partners are helping people prepare for the rains. But efforts remain severely constrained by funding shortages and restrictions on the entry of essential materials. https://t.co/tNZUHp7ZTd
— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) September 24, 2026
Almost 12 months into a fragile “ceasefire” between Hamas and Israel, Gaza’s humanitarian situation remains “overwhelming,” OCHA observed, as Israeli air attacks and other military activity continue.
Gaza emergency and ambulance services confirmed on Thursday that one person was killed in an Israeli strike in the Khan Younis area. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said another Palestinian was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City.
Israeli artillery fire on a house in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah injured two people, while seven others were wounded when an Israeli strike hit an apartment in the same area.
#شاهد| اصابة منزل لعائلة زعرب بقذيفة دبابة واشتعال النيران فيه بمواصي مدينة رفح . https://t.co/vykDsfE9TT
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) October 8, 2026
The Gaza-run Health Ministry stated that 1,471 Palestinians had been killed and 5,189 wounded since the Oct. 11, 2025, ceasefire, while 836 bodies had been recovered. That brought the overall Palestinian death toll since Oct. 7, 2023, to 74,254, with 175,306 people wounded.