Health care is on its knees due to the order by Israel to evacuate Gaza hospitals
Hamas in Gaza: Israel’s military confronts Gaza’s most critical medical facilities and calls for a cease-and-desist campaign
Israel’s military pressed ahead Saturday with a campaign to force the rescue of hospitals in the northern part of the Gaza Strip because it thinks Hamas is taking cover there.
Just a week ago, Israel acknowledged an airstrike just outside that hospital killed more than a dozen people. Israel said it targeted Hamas members trying to leave the hospital in an ambulance.
International outcry continues to grow over conditions at Gaza’s biggest hospital around which Israel’s military says it’s been battling Hamas fighters.
Israel’s military said it surrounded Al Rantisi and told everyone to leave, including staff, patients and civilians sheltering on the hospital grounds. The military said Hamas fighters were also present and tried to prevent civilians from leaving. But eventually many civilians left, the military said — many by foot, some by ambulance. Israel’s military said it killed the “terrorist” who held approximately 1,000 civilians “hostage” at Rantisi.
The World Health Organization said that Gaza’s medical system is “on its knees” because of the forced evacuated from Israel.
The WHO’s director-general said on Friday that the organization had documented five attacks on five hospitals in a single day in Gaza in the previous week. Half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and two-thirds of the territory’s primary health care centers are no longer functioning, he added.
Several hospitals were hit by Israeli bombardments on Friday according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on social media that Gaza City’s Al-Quds Hospital is “out of service and no longer operational” because of “the depletion of available fuel and power outage.” The PRCS, which runs Al-Quds Hospital, said hundreds of patients were trapped and 14,000 people were sheltering there.
The courtyard that has been used as a shelter for the injured and displaced since the Israeli incursion began was shared online by witnesses in several videos.
Robert Mardini, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said on social media that the “unbearably desperate” situation at Al-Shifa Hospital must stop. There can’t be a reason for war in health care facilities, according to the UN humanitarian chief.
The director of Al Shifa Medical Complex, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, said Friday that the situation facing hospitals “is tragic in every sense of the word.”
Hamas denies doing anything of the sort, and hospital officials say the facility houses nothing but the sick and injured and the medical professionals dedicated to helping them. In the estimation of most Palestinians, the obsession with Al Shifa is evidence of Israel’s willingness to target even the most helpless civilians without justification.
Israeli security officials say that the militant groups spent the better part of 16 years building a large command complex under the hospital and similar bases underneath other medical facilities in the enclave. American officials agree with them.
It’s impossible to verify most of the assertions of either side, but the claims will likely be tested soon. The hospital, Israeli officials said, was spared in past Israeli operations out of concern for civilian life, but at the cost of leaving whatever may be underneath it intact.
Israel will not make a mistake like that again, the officials said. According to the reports, the complex is one of the main Israeli targets during the war and will not be left untouched, despite the international calls to spare it.
Doctors Without Borders released a voice memo from Dr. Mohammed Obeid from inside Al-Shifa Hospital saying the lives of dozens of babies are in peril after their incubators shut down because fuel to power generators ran out.
The incubator is not operating because there is no electricity, which resulted in the deaths of two newborn patients. “So the situation is very bad.” We need help.
Gaza and the War Between the United Nations and the Gaza Strip: Israel’s Steps Towards a More Secure and Secure Future of the West Bank
For the past over a month, Israel has stopped allowing fuel to enter Gaza. Israeli officials said that the military is still battling Hamas in the vicinity of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but that Al-Shiufa is not under siege.
Those who do manage to evacuate still face Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza, where the United Nations says its shelters have only one shower for 700 people.
Washington tried to discourage Israel from taking over Gaza. The U.S. envisions a Palestinian government in Gaza and the West Bank, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 11,000 people have been killed in Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip. A Hamas-led attack on Israel killed more than a thousand people.
A Gaza City hospital is “out of service” and no longer operational because of “the depletion of available fuel and power outage”, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said. It added that over 14,000 people were sheltering there. The WHO has documented five attacks on five Gaza hospitals in a single day last week, its Director-General said.