Gaza's half of 36 hospitals not functioning

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 11 (AFP/Reuters/BBC): The health care system in the Gaza Strip is "on its knees," the head of the World Health Organization warned Friday, noting that half of the territory's 36 hospitals are no longer functioning.

Speaking to the Security Council, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation on the ground as desperate: "Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals."

"The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver lifesaving care," he said.

Tedros said there had been more than 250 attacks on health care-such as strikes on hospitals, clinics, ambulances and patients-in Gaza and the West Bank, and 25 such attacks in Israel in the conflict triggered by Hamas's shock October 7 assault.

"The best way to support those health workers and the people they serve is by giving them the tools they need to deliver that care-medicines, medical equipment and fuel for hospital generators," he said, calling for an increase in aid trickling in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt and repeating the UN's call for a ceasefire.

Raisi says action, not

words, needed on Gaza

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that the time had come for action over the conflict in Gaza rather than talk as he headed to Saudi Arabia to attend a summit on the war between Israel and Hamas militants.

"Gaza is not an arena for words. It should be for action," Raisi said at Tehran airport before departing for the summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

"Today, the unity of the Islamic countries is very important," he added. It is the first visit to Saudi Arabia by an Iranian head of state since Tehran and Riyadh ended years of hostility under a China-brokered deal in March.

"The summit will send a strong message to warmongers in the region and result in the cessation of war crimes in Palestine," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who is accompanying Raisi, was quoted as saying by the Padolat government website.

"America says it doesn't want an expansion of the war and has sent messages to Iran and several countries [to this effect]. But these statements are not consistent with America's actions," Raisi said in televised comments at Tehran airport.

US voices concern over

killing of Palestinians

The United States has expressed growing concern about the rising Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip where health officials said the number killed in a five-week-old Israeli bombardment had topped 11,000.

Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants escalated near and around Gaza City's besieged and overcrowded hospitals, which Palestinian officials on Friday said were hit by explosions and gunfire.

In his strongest comments to date on the plight of civilians caught in the Gaza cross-fire, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on a visit to India: "Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks."

Macron calls on Israel to stop

killing Gaza's women, babies

Israel must stop killing babies and women in Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron has told the BBC. In an exclusive interview at the Élysée Palace, he said there was "no justification" for the bombing, saying a ceasefire would benefit Israel.

While recognising Israel's right to protect itself, "we do urge them to stop this bombing" in Gaza, he said. But he also stressed that France "clearly condemns" the "terrorist" actions of Hamas.

France - like Israel, the US, the UK, and other Western nations - considers Hamas a terrorist organisation. When asked if he wanted other leaders - including in the US and the UK - to join his calls for a ceasefire, he replied: "I hope they will."