Gaza’s largest hospital has ceased to function and deaths among patients are rising, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday, as violent Israeli attacks continued in the Hamas-controlled strip.
Hospitals in the northern Palestinian territories, including the al-Shifa complex, are blockaded by Israeli forces and are barely able to care for those inside, with three newborns dead and more at risk of power cuts amid fierce fighting nearby, according to medical staff. .
Israel says it is pursuing Palestinian Hamas militants who launched a deadly attack in southern Israel on October 7, and says the group has a command center under and near a hospital.
The WHO managed to speak to health professionals in al-Shifa, who described the situation as “horrendous and dangerous” with constant gunfire and shelling exacerbating an already critical situation, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The Bureij refugee camp in Deir Al-Balah province was treated at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in central Gaza. ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA
“Tragically, the number of patient deaths has increased significantly,” he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that al-Shifa “doesn’t function as a hospital anymore”.
Tedros joined other top United Nations officials in calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“The world cannot remain silent while hospitals, which are supposed to be places of safety, turn into scenes of death, destruction, and despair,” he said.
Palestinians carry victims of an Israeli attack at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 9, 2023. REUTERS
The president of Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, also called for a ceasefire before meeting US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday.
“The ceasefire must be implemented soon, we must also speed up and increase the amount of humanitarian aid, and we must start peace negotiations,” said President Joko Widodo in a video recorded after he participated in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh.
He said the world seemed “powerless” in the face of the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Men examine the bodies of people killed in a bombing that hit a school that left Palestinians homeless, as they lie on the ground in the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 10, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
The extraordinary joint Muslim-Arab summit also called on the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel” in the Palestinian territories.
Israel said it was trying to free more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas militants on Oct. 7. and said the hospital should be moved.
The European Union condemned Hamas for using “hospitals and civilians as human shields” in Gaza, while also urging Israel to show “maximum restraint” to protect civilians.
Palestinian girl Orheen Al-Dayah, who was wounded in her forehead in an Israeli attack amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, has her wound stitched up without anesthesia, at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, November 8, 2023. REUTERS
“These hostilities have a severe impact on hospitals and affect civilians and medical staff,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday in a statement issued on behalf of the 27-nation bloc.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Hamas was using hospitals and other public facilities to house fighters and weapons, which he said violated the laws of war.
“The United States does not want to see fighting in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we have been in active consultation with the Israel Defense Forces on this matter,” Sullivan told CBS News.
A newborn baby is placed on a bed after being removed from an incubator at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza following a power cut, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Gaza on November 12, 2023. via REUTERS
Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after the militants went on a rampage in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gazans have been killed in airstrikes and artillery since then, about 40% of them children.
Israel’s military response has also sparked outrage in cities around the world, where hundreds of thousands of people have staged protests demanding a ceasefire.
A Palestinian injured in Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip is taken to a hospital in Khan Younis, on November 12, 2023.AP
Israel’s supporters, including in Washington, say the ceasefire will allow Hamas to prepare for more attacks, but the Biden administration has pushed Israel to allow pauses in the fighting for civilians to flee and aid to flow in.
Biden, who spoke on Sunday with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani about developments in Gaza, agreed that all hostages held by Hamas must be released “without further delay”, the White House said in a statement.
The conflict has raised fears of wider fires.
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Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, has exchanged missile strikes with Israel, and other Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have launched at least 40 separate drone and rocket attacks on US troops.
The United States carried out two airstrikes in Syria against Iran-allied groups on Sunday, a US defense official told Reuters, in what appeared to be the latest response to the attacks.
BABY AT RISK
The Israeli army said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies and had placed 300 liters of fuel at the al-Shifa entrance on Saturday night, but both gestures were blocked by Hamas.
Hamas denied that it refused the fuel and said the hospital was under the authority of the Gaza Ministry of Health, adding that the amount of fuel offered by Israel was “not enough to run the (hospital’s) generator for more than half an hour”.
Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said of the 45 babies in the incubator in al-Shifa, three had died.
A plastic surgeon in al-Shifa said the bombing of the building housing the incubator had forced staff to line up premature babies on ordinary beds, using what little power was available to turn on air conditioning to keep them warm.
“We expect to lose more of them day by day,” said Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the area’s second largest hospital, Al-Quds, was also out of action, 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 for the past six to seven days. No way in, no way out,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
