The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Sunday about the number of starving patientswhom his teams met in Gaza hospitals over the weekend.

On Saturday, a WHO-organized mission went to hospitals in Gaza City, allowing, among other things, the delivery of more than 19,000 liters of oil to Al Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, which was besieged by the Israeli army on November, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced last night on X (formerly Twitter).

What the members of the December 23 mission found, “is an increasingly growing desperation due to hunger” said Tedros, who advocated “an immediate increase in (the shipment of) food and water in order to ensure the health and stability of the population.”

According to the head of the WHO, “incessant fighting and a huge number of wounded have brought the possibilities to their knees” (of Al Shifa Hospital). The hospital can only provide “the most basic first aid” at this time.

Sean Casey, a member of the World Health Organization mission, described overcrowded operating theaters at Al Shifa Hospital, explaining that he was unable to assess the operation of the operating theaters, “because there are people inside and they don’t open the door.”

“All the people we spoke to are hungry,” he added in the video he shot inside Al Shifa hospital and posted on X. “There is a risk of starvation,” he warned.

The head of the WHO spoke, on the other hand, of desperate residents who grabbed food aid that was being transported by a truck to the hospital.

“In this context of serious food shortages, the search for food (…) pushes some to a state of despairto take food from transport trucks,” Tedros wrote.

The World Health Organization teams also visited Al Sahaba and Al Helou maternity hospitals, where up to 35 births a day are recorded together, in an environment lacking fuel to run generators, food, water, oxygen, antibiotics and anesthetic drugs.