Graphic video shows ‘impossible to describe’ Gaza hospital
Heavy shelling in Gaza drives more than 15,000 people to seek shelter in a nearby hospital. The conditions inside are dire.
As Israeli airstrikes and ground forces advance toward Gaza’s largest hospital, thousands of civilians seeking shelter and receiving treatment remain trapped inside the facility that officials say has run out of fuel and water.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Al Shifa Hospital – a stated target of Israeli military officials who say the facility is the location of a significant Hamas command post – “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”
“It’s been 3 days without electricity, without water, and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care,” he said Sunday on X, calling the situation “dire and perilous” and urging for an immediate cease fire. “The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair.”
At the hospital there are an estimated 1,500 patients, along with 1,500 medical staff and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Over the weekend, several babies died after incubators lost power, Health Ministry officials said.
On Monday, Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, said 32 wounded people have died at Shifa hospital, including seven patients in the Intensive Care Unit, reported The Associated Press. He pleaded for the opening of a “safe passage” to take patients to Egypt, including 36 newborn babies that’ve been moved to an operating room that health workers are working to keep heated.
Hamas has denied accusations that it’s concealing a command post within the Shifa complex and said Israeli officials are using such claims to justify continued airstrikes and advancing ground forces in the area. Hamas and Israeli military officials have made competing claims about the hospital as well as efforts to limit civilian casualties.
Israeli officials said they’ve provided an escape route for civilians as ground forces close in on the hospital. The head of surgery at Shifa Hospital, Dr. Marwan Abusada, told Al Jazeera, “No one can get out. No one can come in … People who tried to evacuate the hospital, they were shot at in the streets.”
Israeli military officials also said they’ve coordinated with Shifa leaders and placed 300 liters of fuel near the hospital overnight to supply an emergency generator – an effort described as a mockery by a spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Gaza, who said the fuel would provide “less than an hour to run the generator.”
Developments:
∎ On Monday, 27 European Union nations in a joint statement condemned Hamas for using hospitals and civilians as “human shields,” and urged Israel to use “maximum restraint and targeting in order to avoid human casualties.”
∎ U.N. offices around the world on Monday lowered their flags to half-mast to mourn workers killed since the war broke out after Hamas’ deadly incursion into southern Israel last month.
∎ More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. About 2,700 people have been reported missing.
∎ More than 1,200 people in Israel died, most of them in the Hamas attack, and about 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by Palestinian militants.
Thomas White, the director of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, on Monday said “the humanitarian operation in Gaza will grind to a halt in the next 48 hours as no fuel is allowed to enter Gaza.”
Earlier in the day, two of the agency’s water distribution contractors stopped working because they ran out of fuel, effectively denying potable water to 200,000 people, White said.
The agency director said a bulk reservoir of fuel that the U.N. was able to access through coordination with the Israeli government is “now empty.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), an independent humanitarian group, on Monday said it had to turn back its evacuation convoy that was headed to pick up severely injured patients at Al Quds Hospital because of “relentless bombardment and dangerous situation where the Hospital is located.”
The hospital, which is one of the largest in Gaza, ran out of food, water and electricity over the weekend, according to the PRCS.
Israeli tanks and military vehicles had surrounded the hospital in all directions by early Monday, said the PRCS, adding that “shelling and violent explosions” bombarded the nearby area.
More than half of hospitals throughout the Gaza Strip are no longer functioning, according to the WHO.
The Israeli military on Monday announced the reopening of evacuation corridors for civilians to flee northern Gaza as well as a “tactical pause of military operation” in Rafah, a city in Southern Gaza, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time.
The evacuation routes will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to the Israeli military. The U.N. estimates over 100,000 civilians have fled northern Gaza using the evacuation routes.
Last week, Israel announced its commitment to daily 4-hour pauses in areas throughout Gaza to broaden the flow of humanitarian aid. The “humanitarian pauses” were urged repeatedly by U.S. officials including President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Israeli officials said considerations for a ceasefire are contingent on the release of hostages.
The UNRWA, the U.N. Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees, said a guesthouse in Rafah, in the south Gaza Strip, received significant damage Monday from “Israeli Force naval strikes.”
No deaths were reported and the agency said U.N. staff had left the building “90 minutes before the strike.”
“This recent attack is yet another indication that nowhere in Gaza is safe. Not the north, not the middle areas and not the south,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.
Nearly 780,000 displaced civilians have taken refuge in U.N. buildings and facilities, including schools, since the start of the war last month. More than 66 civilians have been killed and several hundreds injured in damage reported at more than 60 UNRWA facilities since the start of the war last month. Over 100 UNRWA workers have been killed since Oct. 7, making the conflict the deadliest ever for U.N. employees.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a hostage deal with Hamas could be near but declined to discuss details to avoid derailing the delicate negotiations. “I think the less I say about it, the more I’ll increase the chances that it materializes” he told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” Netanyahu credited Israel’s military pressure for getting Hamas to discuss the release.
“That’s the one thing that might create a deal,” he said. “We will talk about it when it’s there. We’ll announce it if it’s achievable.”
The hostage talks were drawing extensive and sometimes contradictory buzz. A Biden administration official confirmed a possible deal involving the release of about 80 women and children in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and teenagers held by Israel, NBC News reported. The official, which NBC did not name, acknowledged there is no certainty that any deal will come to fruition.
But Reuters reported that Hamas decided Sunday to suspend hostage negotiations because of Israel’s assault on Al Shifa Hospital, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks told the news service.
Contributing: The Associated Press; John Bacon, Thao Nguyen
David Turner is a globe-trotting journalist who brings a global perspective to our readers. With a commitment to shedding light on international events, he explores complex geopolitical issues, offering a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
