Heavy fighting near Gaza\u2019s largest hospital has left it in a \u201ccatastrophic situation,\u201d with patients and staff trapped inside, ambulances unable to collect the wounded and life-support systems without electricity, health officials and aid agencies are reporting. <\/p>\n
Hostilities around the hospital, Gaza\u2019s largest, \u201chave not stopped,\u201d according to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, with constant bombardment preventing evacuations and making it too dangerous for ambulance journeys, according to the organization. <\/p>\n
Three newborn babies died after the hospital went \u201cout of service\u201d amid intense fighting in the area, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, which claims the hospital is\u00a0surrounded on all four sides\u00a0by Israeli forces and under \u201ccomplete siege.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra\u00a0said he was trapped inside the\u00a0complex in northern Gaza, saying it was\u00a0\u201cout of service\u201d\u00a0after repeatedly being targeted by Israeli fire. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe intensive care unit, pediatric department, and oxygen devices have stopped working,\u201d al-Qidra\u00a0said. <\/p>\n
Medical charity MSF said it could not contact any of its staff at Al-Shifa Hospital who had described a \u201ccatastrophic situation\u201d inside. <\/p>\n
In a statement Saturday, the organization said \u201cambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating.\u201d <\/p>\n
The World Health Organization (WHO) also reported losing communication with contacts inside the hospital and described the situation on the ground as \u201cdeeply worrisome and frightening.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital,\u201d WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a\u00a0statement\u00a0on Sunday. <\/p>\n
The IDF has previously said\u00a0Hamas\u00a0is\u00a0embedding itself in civilian infrastructure\u00a0and that it will strike\u00a0Hamas\u00a0\u201cwherever necessary.\u201d It has also accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover \u2014 a charge doctors at Shifa and the militant group deny. <\/p>\n
Senior Israeli Defense Ministry official Colonel Moshe Tetro said \u201cthere is no shooting at the hospital and there is no siege.\u201d \u201cThe East Side of the hospital remains open. Additionally, [the military] can coordinate [with] anyone who wants to leave the hospital safely,\u201d Tetro said in a statement. <\/p>\n
In an IDF press briefing on Saturday, the military said it would help evacuate babies from the hospital\u2019s paediatric unit on Sunday. \u201cThe staff of the Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the paediatric department get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed,\u201d said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. <\/p>\n
Israel has been stepping up its offensive inside Gaza as part of its response to the surprise Hamas attacks that left 1,200 people dead. <\/p>\n
Since then, Israel has been bombarding and blockading Gaza, an already impoverished and densely packed territory, leaving more than 11,000 people dead, according to Palestinian health officials. The assault has sparked escalating warnings about healthcare in Gaza. <\/p>\n
The Director General for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC),\u00a0Robert Mardini,\u00a0said the organization was \u201cshocked and appalled by the images and reports coming from Al-Shifa Hospital\u00a0in Gaza.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe unbearably desperate situation for patients & staff trapped inside must stop. Now,\u201d Mardini said in a post on X. <\/p>\n
Al-Bursh\u00a0at the health ministry said Al-Shifa Hospital\u00a0was under \u201ccomplete siege\u201d with staff and patients unable to evacuate. <\/p>\n
There are still more than 400 people being treated at the\u00a0hospital\u00a0and around 20,000 displaced people seeking shelter in the\u00a0hospital\u00a0complex, according to Al-Bursh. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is very difficult and dire. After a slowdown in shelling this afternoon, the shelling and gun fire resumed, heavily targeting anything that moves,\u201d Sarsour said, adding that medics inside the facility were working by candlelight and that food is growing scarce for both doctors and patients. <\/p>\n
Al-Bursh\u00a0said people who had been injured were instead being transported to the Al-Ahli Hospital as Al-Shifa\u00a0was inaccessible. <\/p>\n
Humanitarian agencies have been sounding the alarm about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital. Angelita Caredda, the Norwegian Refugee Council\u2019s Middle East director, said in a statement that the group was \u201chorrified by reports of relentless attacks on Gaza\u2019s hospitals.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cPatients, including babies,\u00a0and\u00a0civilians seeking relief are trapped under attack. It is an affront to wage war around\u00a0and\u00a0on hospitals,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Martin Griffiths, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, condemned attacks on healthcare facilities, saying in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that \u201cthere can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities.\u201d <\/p>\n
Griffiths wrote that people using and working at Gazan healthcare facilities \u201cmust trust that they are places of shelter and not of war.\u201d <\/p>\n
UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children, called for the protection of hospitals in Gaza amid the \u201cdeeply worrying\u201d situation in Al-Shifa. <\/p>\n
It also called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. In a statement released early Sunday, UNICEF said: \u201cAl Shifa hospital in Gaza is without power and we are seeing deeply worrying reports of premature babies dying in incubators.\u201d <\/p>\n
Other hospitals have been caught up in the fighting. On Friday the director of two facilities said Israeli tanks\u00a0had them encircled. <\/p>\n
Early Sunday, Jordan\u2019s air force used parachutes to air-drop medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza, the country\u2019s prime minister said in a statement. It is the second time the country has air-dropped an aid package this month. <\/p>\n
The relief operation\u00a0took place in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to \u201cenhance and develop the hospital\u2019s capabilities and increase the ability of medical personnel to provide health and treatment services to alleviate the burden of the people in the Gaza Strip,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
This story is being updated with additional developments.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n Heavy fighting near Gaza\u2019s largest hospital has left it in a \u201ccatastrophic situation,\u201d with patients and staff trapped inside, ambulances unable to collect the wounded and life-support systems without electricity, health officials and aid agencies are reporting. Hostilities around the hospital, Gaza\u2019s largest, \u201chave not stopped,\u201d according to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), also known as <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}