The situation is becoming increasingly dramatic in hospitals located in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, where two premature babies in the intensive care unit died prematurely on Saturday due to a lack of electricity, according to Doctors Without Borders, amid heavy fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas fighters.
Arab and Muslim leaders have called for a ceasefire, a demand also voiced by hundreds of thousands of protesters in Europe, amid concerns that the war will spread and a verbal escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, which exchange fire on the border daily.
Today, the 37th day of the war triggered by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 20 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are “out of order”, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) of UN.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed deep concern in the early hours as his services “lost contact” with staff at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest of the entire Palestinian enclave, which has been the target of “repeated attacks”.
Explosions and heavy firefights in Gaza City, in the northern part of the roughly 360 square kilometer territory ruled by Hamas since 2007, continued overnight.
“Relentless shelling”
Israel declared war on Hamas after its militants attacked, saying it would “annihilate” the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Since then, Israeli shelling has killed at least 11,078 people, the vast majority of them civilians, including 4,506 children, according to Hamas’ health ministry, the latest tally of which was released last Friday.
On the Israeli side, at least 1,200 people were killed, also mostly civilians, most of them on the day of the attack by Hamas, which Israel, the US and the European Union designate as a “terrorist” organization. Some 240 hostages were taken in Gaza, according to the Israeli military, which says it has lost 42 soldiers in the Palestinian enclave since a ground operation began on October 27.
Fighting is taking place in the heart of Gaza City, where according to Chahal, the Israeli military, is the “center” of the Palestinian movement’s structure, which uses a labyrinthine system of underground tunnels.
International humanitarian organizations are increasingly expressing concern about the fate of the hospitals. Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) spoke of “relentless shelling” against hospitals in Gaza City, especially Ash Shifa, which was “repeatedly hit, including its maternity ward”.
Two newborns who were born prematurely “died because their incubators were no longer working, as the electricity has been cut off,” said Dr. Mohammed Ubaid, an MSF surgeon, in a message uploaded by the NGO to X (formerly Twitter).
There were about 40 premature babies in his ward, including 17 in intensive care, he added.
Evacuation of infants
“Another patient died because his mechanical ventilator stopped” because of the lack of electricity, he added, underlining that the situation at the hospital is increasingly precarious: “we have no electricity, no water, no food” in Sifa, where some 600 patients are , he said.
“The firing does not stop at all, the airstrikes are unrelenting, as are the artillery shells,” an eyewitness inside the facility told AFP by phone.
The armed wing of the Hamas-allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization confirmed that “its fighters engaged in violent clashes, mainly around the compound” of the Shifa hospital, with Israeli soldiers.
The situation at the hospital is “truly catastrophic,” summarized Ann Taylor, MSF’s head of mission in the Palestinian territories.
For his part, the director of the hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, claimed that “the international community should put pressure on the Israeli government to stop targeting hospitals and ambulances.”
The Israeli army denied on Saturday that it targeted the hospital and described as “lies” by Hamas the information that its forces “surrounded and attacked” the health structure. He also said that he intends today to “urgently remove the infants” and transfer them to a “safer hospital”.
In a new announcement, in the middle of the night, Mohammed Abu Salmiya repeated that “the hospital is completely surrounded and the shelling continues around it”. The staff “cannot work” and “the bodies, which are dozens”, cannot even be “buried”, he added.
Sentence in Riyadh
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, “Israeli tanks are 20 meters from Al Quds Hospital,” another facility in Gaza City where 14,000 displaced people have taken refuge.
“The hospital is blocked for the sixth consecutive day due to the incessant shelling,” which is targeting the health facility “directly,” according to the same care and aid organization.
Israeli authorities reiterate that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals, to launch attacks or hide underground tunnels. The Palestinian Islamist movement denies this.
According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “responsibility for every harm suffered by civilians lies with Hamas”, which, according to him, uses them as “human shields”.
Multiple calls for a halt to the fighting since the start of ground operations have been rejected by Israel’s political leadership and its key ally, the US, who argue that a ceasefire would only benefit Hamas.
In London, some 300,000 people demonstrated yesterday Saturday demanding a “cease fire now”. Likewise 20,000 people in Brussels, 16,000 in Paris, about 500 in Tunis.
Last night, thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv to demand the return of the hostages and set up a long dinner table with over 200 empty chairs.
In Riyadh, dozens of Arab and Muslim leaders attending an emergency meeting condemned the “double standard” in international reactions to the war, rejecting Israel’s argument of “legitimate defense” after the Hamas attack.
The head of Saudi Arabia’s diplomacy, Faisal bin Farhan, denounced “countries which (…) turn a blind eye to Israel’s non-compliance with fundamental principles of international law.”
Warning
The international community fears the spread of the war, especially in Lebanon, as on the border of this country the exchanges of fire have been daily since October 8 between the Israeli army and Hezbollah and the blows are now being done at an ever greater depth. Israeli strikes have also targeted positions in Syria from where, according to Chahal, Hezbollah members fire rockets.
The leader of the Shiite movement, Hassan Nasrallah, referred to an increase in operations against Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad, for his part, warned Hezbollah not to “play with fire,” declaring that Beirut may suffer the same fate as Gaza if Hezbollah drags Lebanon into war.
More than 90 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border, according to an AFP tally, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also civilians and at least one journalist. On the Israeli side, there are eight dead, six military and two civilians.
The Israeli army also announced earlier today that it struck “terrorist infrastructure” in Syria with fighter jets, in retaliation for fire from that country’s territory on the part of the Golan Heights that has been annexed by the State of Israel since 1981.
In Gaza, nearly 200,000 Palestinians have left the northern part of the territory in the past three days through “corridors” opened daily during humanitarian “pauses” to reach the south, where shelling and fighting are less intense. The Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing is expected to reopen today to allow injured people, foreigners and dual nationals to pass through, according to Palestinian and Egyptian officials.
In the small enclave, which has been hammered relentlessly for more than a month, 1.6 million of its 2.4 million residents have been displaced, according to the UN, and the humanitarian situation is increasingly described as catastrophic.
The total siege imposed by Israel on October 9 deprives the population of the Palestinian enclave of water, electricity, food and medicine.
Source: protothema.gr
