Many hospitals in Gaza continue to be closed

Two more major hospitals in Gaza were forced to close on Sunday, with staff saying Israeli bombing and shortages of fuel and medicine meant many babies and others were unlikely to survive.

Hospitals in the northern Palestinian enclave are under blockade by Israeli forces and are unable to serve those already admitted there. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and hospitals should be evacuated.

Gaza's two largest hospitals, Al-Shifa and Al Quds, have said they have stopped working. Many people are injured and die every day while more than half of Gaza's hospitals are out of service, leaving even fewer places for the injured to be treated.

“My son is injured and I can’t take him to a hospital to get stitches,” said Ahmed al-Kahlout, who is evacuating south at the urging of the Israeli army but remains concerned that no place in Gaza is safe.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO had restored communication with medical professionals at Al-Shifa hospital, but the situation was “extremely dire and dangerous” with shootings and bombings making an already dire situation worse.

“The situation is even more tragic as the number of patients who have died has increased significantly. Unfortunately, the [Al-Shifa] hospital is no longer functioning effectively.”

A plastic surgeon in Al-Shifa said bombings of the building housing the incubators forced them to place newborns on regular beds, using the limited electricity to run air conditioning to keep them warm.

“We are seeing more and more babies dying,” said Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati.

Israel claims Hamas has placed command centers under or near hospitals and that it needed to attack these sites to free 200 hostages the militant group took in Israel in an attack on October 7. Hamas has denied the allegations.

On Sunday, a Palestinian official with knowledge of the hostage negotiations said Hamas had suspended negotiations because of Israel's actions at Al-Shifa hospital.

There has been no comment from Hamas or Israel yet.

“No one in, no one out”

The Israeli military said it had offered to help evacuate the babies and had delivered 300 litres of fuel to the gates of Al-Shifa hospital, but both actions were blocked by Hamas.

Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa hospital, said reports of Hamas receiving fuel were “lies and slander.” Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said three of the 45 babies in incubators had died.

Mohammad Qandil, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis, Gaza, with many colleagues working at Al-Shifa Hospital, said the hospital has been unable to accept any more newly injured people recently.

“Shifa Hospital has been shut down. No one is allowed in, no one is allowed out.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent humanitarian organization said Al Quds Hospital had also stopped functioning, and staff were struggling to treat patients already admitted with increasingly low supplies of medicine, food and water.

Overview - Reuters: Many hospitals in Gaza continue to have to stop operating — Photo: Reuters.

“Al Quds Hospital has been cut off from the outside world for the past six to seven days. There is no way in or out of the hospital,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Three UN agencies expressed horror at the situation at hospitals, saying that in the past 36 days they had recorded 137 attacks on health facilities, resulting in 521 deaths and 686 injuries – including 16 health workers killed and 38 injured.

With the humanitarian situation deteriorating across Gaza, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News that Americans in Gaza will be evacuated from Gaza on Sunday.

Relief transport by truck and parachute

At least 80 trucks carrying aid crossed from Egypt into Gaza on Sunday afternoon, according to two sources. Jordan had earlier said it had airlifted a second aid package to a field hospital.

Very little aid has been brought into Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after the militant group swept through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages.

Palestinian officials said on Friday that some 11,708 Gazans have been killed in airstrikes and shelling since then, 40% of them children.

International aid agencies say disease is spreading among displaced people crammed into schools and other shelters, and they are surviving on scant food and water.

Jamila, 54, who is currently stuck in Gaza City, said she and her family hear the roar of tanks near them every day.

“During the day, people were trying to find basic necessities like bread or water, and at night, we were trying to survive. We heard explosions all night long, sometimes we could recognize the explosions as confrontations between resistance fighters and Israeli forces.”

Palestinian health officials say 13 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential home in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday.

Residents have reported increased clashes around the Al-Shati refugee camp on the northern Gaza coast. The Israeli military claims to have killed several militants there and has called on civilians to take advantage of a daily four-hour truce to evacuate to the south.

The fighting in Gaza has reignited tensions along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, and there have been some of the worst cross-border clashes since 2006 in the area.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Lebanese group backed by Iran similar to Hamas, said it attacked Israeli soldiers near the Borev barracks on Sunday, causing several casualties.

The Israeli military said several anti-tank missiles fired by militia groups injured several civilians, and also said it responded with artillery fire.

Nguyen Quang Minh

(According to Reuters)

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