“In fact, there are still many more people missing,“Dr. Abubakar told reporters in Geneva. “They are believed to be under the rubble.”
Many body parts also await identification, he said.
Threat to ambulance personnel
The UN health agency official also spoke of a warning received from Israel on Friday morning that “ambulances will also be attacked.”
He said Israel had been warning about “Hezbollah’s use of ambulances.”
The WHO has insisted that, while health care should not be militarized, the misuse of health facilities or ambulances does not justify attacking them.
“Health workers, facilities, ambulances are all protected by international humanitarian law,”said the senior doctor.
“Unless we have these services available, we will not be able to save lives.”
On Thursday, the WHO also received a warning that Israeli evacuation orders had been expanded in the Jneh area of Beirut, which includes “two major hospitals that are handling the mass casualty (event), Rafik Hariri and Al Zahara hospital.”
Currently the facilities are operating at full capacity. Dr. Abubakar stressed the impossibility of removing the 450 patients from the health centers, including about 50 who are in intensive care after suffering injuries in the bombing on Wednesday.
Impossible evacuation
“We have decided not to evacuate because we have nowhere else to evacuate them, actually,” said.
The U.N. health agency official added that overnight “we received some comments saying that these hospitals will not be attacked… we’ll see if that will materialize or not.”
Amid the surge in emergency cases, the WHO official noted that even before Wednesday’s mass casualty event, the country did not have enough medical supplies to last even a month.
The April 8 airstrikes took place just hours after a ceasefire was announced between the United States and Iran.
Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have continued, while according to media reports Iran said on Friday it would not participate in peace talks scheduled for Saturday in Pakistan if the ceasefire was not extended to Lebanon..
Firefighters inspect a scene of destruction in Beirut, Lebanon.
More agitation
United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesman Eujin Byun said families who had already fled previous hostilities in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon – some of whom had begun contemplating return after conflicting signals about a ceasefire – were now once again uprooted.
Areas previously considered safe were attacked on Wednesday, he said, “causing panic and forcing people to flee for a second or third time.”
Ms. Byun added that the destruction of the Qasmiyeh Bridge, a major artery connecting the southern cities of Sidon and Tyre, has made “movement between north and south Lebanon much more difficult.”
“For many families in southern villages, return is no longer possible because entire communities have been totally or partially destroyed,” he said.
The UNHCR spokesperson stressed that some There are an estimated 150,000 people still in the South and humanitarian access to them is essential.
“They need a safe route to flee if they are forced to do it again,” he insisted.
Worsening food security
The head of the World Food Program (WFP) in Lebanon, Allison Oman, who was in a convoy to a border village in the south earlier this week, gave reporters an account of the situation there.
“What I saw really stuck with me,” he says, describing a local bakery where “they had destroyed the glass front just an hour before we got there, and they were already sweeping the glass and they had already turned on the ovens because they were waiting for the wheat flour that we brought in the convoy.”
“Their food reserves were very low and it was clear that this convoy was highly anticipated… it was essential to help them move forward,” she said.
Ms Oman warned that the situation is “rapidly becoming a food security crisis”, with food prices rising across the country.
“In just one month, the price of vegetables has increased by more than 20 percent, bread prices have increased by 17 percent…for families who are already struggling, this is deeply concerning,” he said, highlighting a “very worrying combination” in which prices are rising, incomes have been affected and demand is increasing.
The WFP official also highlighted that in conflict-affected areas in southern Lebanon, More than 80 percent of markets are no longer functional..