Gaza hospitals suspend operations as Israel hunts Hamas
Two major hospitals in Gaza have closed to new patients, with staff saying Israeli bombardment and a lack of fuel and medicine mean more babies and others could die.
Gaza’s Shifa Hospital operating without interruption on Oct. 29, 2023. Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS
Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, medical staff said on Sunday.
Israel says it is homing in on Hamas militants in the area and the hospitals should be evacuated.
Gaza’s largest and second-largest hospitals, Al Shifa and Al-Quds, said they were suspending operations.
With more people killed and wounded daily but half of the territory’s hospitals now out of action, there are ever fewer places for the injured.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has restored communication with health professionals at Shifa, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding the situation was “dire and perilous” with constant gunfire and bombing exacerbating the already critical circumstances.
“Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”
Israel says Hamas has placed command centres under and near the hospitals.
Hamas has denied using hospitals in this way.
On Sunday, a Palestinian official briefed on talks regarding the release of hostages said Hamas had suspended the negotiations because of the way Israel had handled Shifa hospital.
There was no immediate comment from either Hamas or Israel.
Israel’s military said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies and had placed 300 litres of fuel at Shifa’s entrance on Saturday night, but Hamas had blocked both gestures.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Shifa, said reports of refusing to leave the diesel were “lies and slander”.
Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said that of 45 babies in incubators at Shifa, three had already died.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Quds hospital was also out of service, with staff struggling to care for those already there with little medicine, food and water.
“Al Quds hospital has been cut off from the world in the last six to seven days – no way in, no way out,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Three United Nations agencies expressed horror at the situation in the hospitals, saying they had registered at least 137 attacks on healthcare facilities in 36 days, resulting in 521 deaths and 686 injuries – including 16 dead and 38 wounded medics.
With the humanitarian situation across Gaza worsening, 80 foreigners and several injured Palestinians crossed into Egypt in the first evacuations since Friday, Egyptian security sources said.
At least 80 aid trucks had also moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon, two of the sources said.
Very little aid has entered Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing about 1200 people and taking more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
Palestinian officials said on Friday 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then, about 40 per cent of them children.
Disease is spreading among evacuees packed into schools and other shelters and surviving on tiny amounts of food and water, international aid agencies say.
Palestinian health officials said 13 people had been killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday.
The Israeli military said it had killed several militants there and called on civilians to use a four-hour pause to evacuate south.
The Gaza fighting has reignited conflict on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, which has seen the worst cross-border clashes since 2006.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which is backed by Iran, said it attacked Israeli army troops near the Dovev Barracks on Sunday, inflicting casualties.
The Israeli military said earlier anti-tank missiles fired by militants had hit some civilians, adding it was retaliating with artillery fire.
Reuters
