"We know that 520 healthcare professionals have been injured, and we know that 350 healthcare professionals, including allied healthcare workers, have been killed," Mofokeng told a press briefing.
A number of teenagers used to assist medical workers in Gazan hospitals to help them deal with the growing number of those injured and killed, but the adolescents have not been enlisted among the casualties as they were not officially registered as medical workers, the UN special rapporteur added.
"The health system in Gaza has been completely obliterated and the right to health has been decimated at every level. The conditions are incompatible with the realization of everyone to the highest attainable state of physical and mental health. The attacks, the harassment, the killings of many of my own colleagues, healthcare workers, the destruction of health facilities and the destruction of humanitarian aid organizations continue to catapult to proportions yet to be fully quantified if at all possible," Mofokeng said.
On November 24, Qatar mediated a deal between Israel and Hamas on a temporary truce and the exchange of some of the prisoners and hostages, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The ceasefire was extended several times and expired on December 1. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.
On April 7, a new round of the Israel-Hamas talks started in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. The ceasefire proposal made at the talks provided for the release of 40 Israeli hostages in exchange for 900 Palestinian prisoners as a part of a three-stage plan adopted by international mediators. Hamas largely rejected the proposal, saying it would present its own plan for a permanent end to the conflict in the region.