The director-general of the World Health Organization said today that the “health and humanitarian” situation in the Gaza Strip is “inhumane” after more than four months of war, which erupted after the Hamas attack.

“What kind of world do we live in when people can’t get food and water or when people who can’t even walk can’t get medical care?Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the regular press conference in Geneva.

“What kind of world do we live in when health workers are at risk of being bombed while doing their job? What kind of world do we live in when hospitals have to close because there is no more electricity or medicine to save the patients and which are the target of the army?”. For the head of the WHO, “the health and humanitarian situation in Gaza it is inhumane and continues to get worse“.

More generally, “Gaza has become a death zone“, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, repeating an expression he has already used. “Much of the ground has been destroyed, over 29,000 people are dead, many more are missing, presumed dead, and many, many more are injured.“, he added.

He also pointed out that levels of severe malnutrition in the Gaza Strip have increased dramatically since the start of the war, from less than 1% to more than 15% in some places.

“We need a ceasefire now! The hostages must be freed, the bombs must stop falling and access to humanitarian aid must be free. Humanity must prevail“, said the head of the WHO.

According to the UN, 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, are at risk of starvation in the Gaza Strip — an enclave that has been under Israeli siege since the beginning of the war.

The situation is particularly worrying in the north, which is plagued by “chaos and violence”, according to the United Nations World Food Program (PAM), which on Tuesday suspended the distribution of its aid in the area.

Humanitarian aid, which must be given the go-ahead by Israel, essentially enters from Rafah via Egypt, but its progress to the north has been made impossible by the destruction and fighting that isolates this area from the rest of the country.

The attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 killed nearly 1,160 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory strike has since killed at least 29,313 people, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry.