WHO: REBUILDING GAZA’S HEALTH SYSTEM LIKELY TO COST 7$ BILLION

Sun 26 October 2025:

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that Gaza’s health system has been devastated by Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory, which began on 7 October 2023.

“There are no fully functioning hospitals in Gaza,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warning that “the total cost of rebuilding the Gaza health system will be at least $7 billion.”

The organisation’s chief added that no significant progress has been recorded in the quantities of food allowed to enter since the ceasefire, nor any improvement in reducing hunger among the population.

“The situation still remains catastrophic because what’s entering is not enough,” Ghebreyesus told reporters, adding that, “there is no dent in hunger because there is not enough food.”

He further clarified that hunger has not declined despite the ceasefire agreement that came into effect on 10 October, brokered by the United States between Israel and Hamas.

The WHO’s chief warned that ““The crisis is far from over, and the needs are immense,” confirming that “Although the flow of aid has increased, it is still only a fraction of what’s needed.”

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Forever trauma

Those forced to stay in Gaza will have to wrestle with the internal trauma brought on by the devastating genocide. Few, if any, had a moment to process everything they’ve lost – family, friends, homes and a future – in Israel’s relentless onslaught.

In a survey conducted in 2022, before the genocide began on October 7, 2023, Save the Children found that four out of five children in Gaza reported living with depression, grief and fear.

The collective trauma inflicted on Palestinians from Gaza due to the genocide is unlike anything studied or seen in recent years, according to Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.

Last year, an MSF psychiatrist, Ahmad Mahmoud al-Salem, treated children from Gaza at a clinic in Amman, Jordan.

He discovered that most suffered from vivid nightmares, depression and insomnia.

What Gaza’s children are experiencing now is unfathomable, Derek Summerfield, an honorary senior lecturer at London’s Institute of Psychiatry, told Al Jazeera.

He pointed out that there are at least 17,000 unaccompanied children in Gaza and that it’s unclear if they will ever experience a safe and stable environment.

“The future of these children doesn’t depend on their ability to overcome trauma because their trauma isn’t over,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It depends on what happens to the society around them. But their entire society is destroyed, and that’s why this is a genocide.”

Abu Mandeel just wants to provide her children with a semblance of a future, like all parents in Gaza.

Her school-age children have already missed two years of formal education due to the genocide, but the geography teacher says she is trying to give them some basic lessons so they don’t fall too far behind.

“I just want their future to be better than ours,” she said. “The constant killing makes me so afraid for my children.

“Honestly, I hope that I can get my children out of Gaza one day,” Abu Mandeel told Al Jazeera.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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