Gaza’s largest hospital has stopped functioning and deaths among patients are rising, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday, as a fierce Israeli attack on the Hamas-controlled strip continues.
Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave, including the al-Shifa compound, are blocked by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, with three newborns dead and more at risk of power outages amid intense fighting. nearby, according to medical personnel. .
Israel says it is focusing on Palestinian Hamas militants who launched deadly attacks in southern Israel on October 7, and says the group has command centers under and near hospitals.
The WHO managed to speak to health professionals in al-Shifa, who described a “terrible and dangerous” situation with constant shooting and shelling exacerbating the already critical situation, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Bureij refugee camp in Deir Al-Balah governorate receives treatment 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 “no longer functions as a hospital.”
Tedros joined other senior United Nations officials in calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“The world cannot remain silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, become scenes of death, devastation and despair,” he said.
Palestinians carry a victim of Israeli attacks at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City 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.
“A ceasefire must be implemented soon, we must also accelerate and increase the amount of humanitarian aid, and we must start peace negotiations,” President Joko Widodo said in a video recorded after participating in a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation ( OIC) in Riyadh.
He said the world seemed “powerless” over the suffering of the Palestinians.
Men check the bodies of people killed in the bombing that hit a school housing displaced Palestinians, 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 Arab-Islamic summit also urged the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing” in the Palestinian territories.
Israel says it is trying to free the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas militants on October 7 and says hospitals should be evacuated.
The European Union condemned Hamas for using “hospitals and civilians as human shields” in Gaza, while urging Israel to show “maximum restraint” to protect civilians.
Palestinian girl Orheen Al-Dayah, who was injured on the forehead in an Israeli attack amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, has her wounds stitched without anesthesia at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, November 8 2023. REUTERS
“These hostilities are severely affecting hospitals and taking a terrible toll on civilians and medical staff,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement issued on behalf of the 27-nation bloc on Sunday. .
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Hamas was using hospitals and other civilian facilities to house fighters and weapons, which he said constituted a violation of the laws of war.
“The United States does not want to see hospital shootings where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we have had active consultations with the Israel Defense Forces about this,” Sullivan told CBS News.
Newborns are laid on bed after being taken out of incubators at Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital following a power outage, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Gaza, November 12, 2023. via REUTERS
Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after militants swept through southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then, about 40% of them children.
The Israeli military response has also sparked outrage in several cities around the world, where hundreds of thousands of people held protests demanding a ceasefire.
A Palestinian injured in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip is taken to a hospital in Khan Younis, November 12, 2023.AP
Israel’s supporters, including in Washington, say a ceasefire would allow Hamas to prepare for more attacks, but the Biden administration has pressured Israel to allow pauses in the fighting to allow civilians to flee and aid to flow in.
Biden, who spoke with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar on Sunday about developments in Gaza, agreed that all hostages held by Hamas should be released “without further delay,” the White House said in a statement.
The conflict has raised fears of a broader conflagration.
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Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, has traded missile strikes with Israel, and other Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have launched at least 40 separate drone and rocket attacks against American forces.
The United States carried out two airstrikes in Syria against Iran-aligned groups on Sunday, a US defense official told Reuters, in what appeared to be the latest response to the attacks.
BABIES AT RISK
The Israeli military said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies and placed 300 liters of fuel at the entrance to al-Shifa on Saturday night, but both gestures had been blocked by Hamas.
Hamas denied rejecting the fuel and said the hospital was under the authority of Gaza’s Health Ministry, adding that the amount of fuel Israel said it was offering “was not enough to run the (hospital’s) generators for more than half an hour.” hour”.
Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said that of 45 babies in incubators in al-Shifa, three had already died.
A plastic surgeon in al-Shifa said the bombing of the building housing the incubators had forced staff to line up premature babies on communal beds, using what little power was available to run air conditioning to warm them.
“We expect to lose more every day,” said Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the strip’s second largest hospital, Al-Quds, 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 isolated from the world for the last six or seven days. There is no way in or out,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn