A top World Health Organization (WHO) official has emphasized the urgent need for WHO trucks carrying medical aid to be allowed into Gaza, where the situation remains devastating due to Israel's 12-week blockade.

The WHO's Eastern Mediterranean regional director, Hanan Balkhy, stated in Geneva on Monday that no WHO trucks have entered Gaza for medical care support in the past 12 weeks.

“The situation is devastating,” Balkhy said. “We are extremely concerned about the aftermath of this.”

Meanwhile, WHO spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris warned that Gaza’s wounded children are also starving due to Israel’s blockade.

“The little ones are so emaciated, so malnourished. When you put a skin graft on their burns, it doesn’t take. It doesn’t heal because their immune systems are failing. So you have horror on horror, and the only answer is a ceasefire,” Harris said.

She added that infections are a serious problem, with no antiseptics available.

“They basically don’t have things to clean the floor. No antibiotics. People don’t even have an immune system to fight the infection,” Harris explained.

Medical workers in Gaza are also enduring exhaustion, lack of food, and mental health issues.

“They’re suffering enormous mental trauma as they don’t know if the next person they see is one of their children, their brother, sister, or neighbor. And they don’t know if the next moment is their last,” Harris said.

Earlier, Jake Wood, head of a US-supported private humanitarian organization responsible for delivering aid in Gaza under an Israeli-initiated plan, stepped down, arguing that the operation could not achieve its objectives in a manner consistent with humanitarian principles.

Wood announced his resignation in a statement issued by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), introducing new uncertainty regarding the future of the operation.

This comes as international pressure mounts on Israel over the conditions in Gaza, where nearly 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war since October 2023.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Military Affairs Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its war on the besieged coastal territory.