Agencies: 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.”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.

A child is killed on average every 10 minutes in the Gaza Strip, Tedros also said warning “Nowhere and no one is safe.” “On average, a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza,” Tedros said.”I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through, because as a child, I went through the same thing,” said the WHO chief, who is from Ethiopia’s Tigray region. “The sound of gunfire and shells whistling through the air; the smell of smoke after they struck; tracer bullets in the night sky; the fear; the pain; the loss — these things have stayed with me throughout my life.”