Amid intense combat and fuel shortages, hospitals in northern Gaza, including Al-Shifa, are out of service, leading to a rising death toll. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that 27 adult intensive care patients and seven babies have been killed since then.
The Gaza Health Minister, Youssef Abu Rish, said on Monday that the death toll inside Al-Shifa has risen to 27 adult intensive care patients and seven babies since the weekend, as the facility suffered fuel shortages. Abu Rish told AFP that all hospitals in the north of the embattled territory were “out of service.”
Israel argues that its Hamas enemies built their military headquarters under the Al-Shifa hospital complex, while UN agencies and doctors in the facility warned that a lack of generator fuel was claiming lives, including infants. Witnesses reported intense overnight air strikes, with tanks and armored vehicles just meters from the gate of the sprawling Al-Shifa compound at the heart of Gaza City, now an urban war zone.
The World Health Organization in the Palestinian Territories said, early on Monday, that at least 2,300 people, patients, health workers and people fleeing fighting were inside the crippled Al-Shifa. “There are dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded that no one can get to. Ambulances are at a standstill because they get shot at when they go out,” hospital director Muhammad Abu Selmiya told AFP.
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The EU’s humanitarian aid chief, Janez Lenarcic, called on Monday for “meaningful” pauses in the fighting and urgent deliveries of fuel to keep hospitals working in the territory.
The Israel Defense Forces reported more heavy fighting on Monday and once again stressed its claim that Hamas was hiding in civilian infrastructure.
About 980 trucks carrying humanitarian aid have been let into Gaza since October 21, according to the UN humanitarian agency. Fuel has been a key need, especially for hospital generators, but Israel has been concerned that any fuel deliveries could be diverted to Hamas militants. A Turkish vessel carrying materials for field hospitals arrived on Monday in Egypt’s port of El Arish near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Gazans have already fled from the north of the territory under Israeli orders. But it is unclear what, if any, provisions there would be for the sick and injured who are to be transported from Al-Shifa.
Israel’s military said that it would observe a “self-evacuation corridor” on Monday, allowing people to move from Al-Shifa southward, but admitted that the area was still the scene of “intense battles.” The area of fighting “currently includes the area surrounding the Al-Shifa hospital, but not the hospital itself,” a spokesperson for the IDF told AFP.
The Israeli army also said that its ground soldiers had hand-delivered 300 liters (80 gallons) of fuel near the hospital “for urgent medical purposes.” The military shared grainy nighttime footage of combat troops hauling jerry cans, leaving a dozen or more outside a building.
Al-Shifa director Mohammad Abu Salmiya said that he told Israeli authorities he needed at least 8,000 liters to run the main generators and “save hundreds of patients and wounded, but they refused.” AFP was unable to independently verify his account or Israel’s claim that Hamas forbade the hospital from taking the fuel.
Gabriela De La Cruz, with AFP
