The U.S. freeze on aid has left the World Health Organisation (WHO) without 46 million dollars to evacuate seriously ill patients from Gaza and rebuild damaged hospitals in the coastal strip
A representative of the organisation said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters via video link from the Gaza Strip, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO coordinator for the region, said operations could still be financed for the time being with money from other donors.
But, he said, the WHO hopes that the U.S. funding will be released again.
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a suspension of humanitarian assistance in January and said every item of expenditure would be reviewed to determine whether it served U.S. interests.
Peeperkorn said 889 seriously ill patients have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip since February 1, including 335 children, but thousands more are waiting for help that they cannot receive there.
He called on Israel to allow transfers to hospitals in East Jerusalem or the occupied West Bank, which were possible before the war.
Peeperkorn also provided an update on the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip, which he said was going well. He said 92 per cent of the planned 591,000 children aged fewer than 10 had been vaccinated so far.
The campaign was launched after the polio virus was detected in wastewater last year. At the time, around 7,000 children could not be vaccinated due to the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist organisation Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent has opened a field hospital with 54 beds in Gaza City, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The hospital has an intensive care unit and two operating theatres, and can provide care for newborns.
The IFRC said the first patients had arrived at the hospital in the early hours of Tuesday.(dpa/NAN)
