August 22, 2024 — UK-Med confirms that their residential compound used to house their Emergency Medical Team (EMT) in Khan Younis, in the Israeli Army-designated humanitarian area – was damaged by shelling on the night of 21 August. During this time there was an ongoing operation in the area by the Israeli Armed Forces. The shelling caused significant damage to the building, making it uninhabitable and unsafe.
The compound had been cleared through the deconfliction process that is used to ensure protection for humanitarian personnel. UK-Med staff residing in the compound had moved to our field hospital in Al Mawasi beforehand as a precautionary measure, despite not being given any evacuation order. Thankfully, all UK-Med staff are safe and uninjured.
UK-Med is extremely concerned by this incident and will coordinate with the UN for an independent assessment of the damage.
UK-Med CEO, David Wightwick, said: “We need to establish the facts as to how this took place, and we need assurances that this will not happen again at any of our sites. It is a huge relief that none of our staff were killed or injured.”
UK-Med is currently providing medical treatment and life-saving surgery for over 8,000 patients per week. To date, we have provided care to over 110,000 people without access to health services in Gaza due to the ongoing conflict, making us one of the largest humanitarian health actors present. The shelling of the UK-Med guesthouse has not impacted the organisation’s operations, whose two field hospitals are still open and receiving patients.
It is the responsibility of all parties to the conflict to uphold the protection of civilians, and to prevent attacks on civilian infrastructure and humanitarian workers, as obligated by international humanitarian law. We remain committed to serve the humanitarian imperative according to principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence by delivering essential life-saving services to civilians who continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing conflict.
Approximately 1.7 million people are estimated to be displaced in Khan Younis and the Middle Area. Many families in Khan Younis are taking refuge in damaged and destroyed facilities.
For media enquiries, please contact the UK-Med communications team at comms@uk-med.org.
About UK-Med
We’re a frontline medical aid charity. Born of the NHS, we’re working towards a world where everyone has the healthcare they need when disasters or crises hit.
UK-Med is a humanitarian medical NGO with more than 30 years’ experience responding to conflicts and disasters around the world, including the war in Ukraine and the Turkey/Syria earthquakes.
We have a roster of nearly 1,000 medics and humanitarians, some of whom are NHS workers, on standby to respond to global health crises 24/7.
We are the only British NGO to be accredited by the World Health Organization as an Emergency Medical Team, and as such, we have been called on by the World Health Organization to provide urgent and life-saving medical aid in Gaza.
