Premature babies at Gaza\u2019s largest hospital are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive in \u201ccatastrophic\u201d conditions, the hospital director has warned, as Israeli firepower pounds surrounding streets and remaining fuel reserves dry up, leaving the facility unable to function. <\/p>\n
Images show several newborn\u00a0babies\u00a0who were taken from incubators at the hospital placed together in one bed. <\/p>\n
The doctor on Sunday told Al Araby TV that several children had died in the intensive care unit and the nursery over the past two days amid Israel\u2019s unrelenting bombardment and blockade of Gaza, an already impoverished and densely packed territory, following the October 7 attack on its territory by Hamas militants. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these babies are born prematurely, to sustain their lives they need to have the same temperature of the\ufeffir mother. This temperature can only be offered in the incubators, which are heated properly,\u201d Abbas said. <\/p>\n
He warned that the situation would only worsen as winter draws in. <\/p>\n
A freelance journalist inside Al-Shifa described dozens of bodies yet to be buried, ambulances that were unable to collect the wounded, and life-support systems with no electricity to function. Medics were working by candlelight, food was being rationed and people inside were starting to drink pipe water, the journalist said late Saturday. <\/p>\n
\u201cCommunication is very bad and almost impossible for us to report what is happening in the hospital and its yards, we barely have cell lines but no internet,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo-one can move or dare to go out of the hospital, the staff here are aware of many strikes that are happening around the hospital, we see smoke coming up from those strikes and we know\u00a0that there are people in some of those buildings but ambulances do not make their way out of the hospital because\u2026 during the last days an ambulance was hit on its way out of the hospital.\u201d <\/p>\n
Inside the hospital, none of the operating rooms are functioning due to a lack of electricity, Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV, adding that \u201cwhoever needs surgery dies, and we cannot do anything for him.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNow the wounded come to us and we cannot give them anything other than first aid,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The World Health Organization says Al-Shifa has been without power for three days. \u201cRegrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n
The spokesman for the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza, Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra, said over the weekend that the intensive care unit, pediatric department and oxygen devices were out of service. <\/p>\n
Al-Shifa is far from alone.\u00a0On Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced that Al-Quds Hospital, another major facility in Gaza City, was out of service. The PRCS said the hospital \u2013 the second largest in Gaza \u2013 was \u201cno longer operational. This cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 11,180 people, including 4,609 children and 3,100 women, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from the Hamas-controlled territory. At least 28,200 people have been injured. <\/p>\n
In recent days, 15\u00a0patients have died\u00a0at Al-Shifa, among them\u00a0six\u00a0newborns, due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s blockade on essential supplies including fuel entering Gaza has deepened a humanitarian crisis as hospitals, water systems, bakeries and other\u00a0services reliant on electricity shut down. <\/p>\n
Volker T\u00fcrk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Wednesday that both Hamas and Israel had committed war crimes in the past month. <\/p>\n
Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the director-general of the Hamas-controlled health ministry, said Monday that medical staff at Al-Shifa had refused an IDF evacuation order because they fear approximately 700 patients will die if they are left behind. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been no response until now by the doctors, but some of the displaced people and families have already been leaving.\u201d <\/p>\n
The evacuation order, according to Al-Bursh, is not coordinated with any international humanitarian agencies, such as the International Red Cross. The lack of coordination raises concerns about the safety and feasibility of transferring such a large number of patients, many of whom are in critical condition and will die in transport, he said. <\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, the IDF announced that an evacuation corridor for residents of northern Gaza had been reopened. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Sunday that the majority of people in Al-Nasr hospital and Al Rantisi Pediatric hospital, both in northern Gaza, had been evacuated. <\/p>\n
The Israeli military estimates 240 hostages are being held by Hamas in Gaza, including civilian men, women and children. The militant group has released just four hostages \u2013 two elderly Israeli women and an American mother and daughter \u2013 while the\u00a0Israeli forces\u00a0said they had rescued an Israeli soldier. <\/p>\n
Israeli troops on Sunday continued their ground operation in Gaza by going deeper into Gaza City,\u00a0army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel\u00a0Hagari\u00a0said in a press briefing. Infantry and combat engineering forces\u00a0reached the outskirts of al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, Hagari said, which is near Al-Shifa hospital. Meanwhile, army forces in coordination with the Navy raided the Gaza marina area and are currently in the areas to its east. <\/p>\n
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it had put 300 liters of fuel at the entrance to the\u00a0Shifa\u00a0hospital complex, but that Hamas had blocked the hospital from receiving it.\u00a0Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV that staff had been too scared to go out to get it. <\/p>\n
The IDF released a video it said showed soldiers delivering the jerry cans to a\u00a0curbside\u00a0location near the hospital entrance. It also released an audio recording, purportedly of a hospital official accusing a Hamas leader at the health ministry of refusing to allow it to be collected. <\/p>\n
Abu Salmiya said it was the presence of Israeli tanks that had prevented collection. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, my paramedic team was completely afraid to go out,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cWe want every drop of fuel, but I told (the IDF) that it should be sent through the International Red Cross or through any international institution.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hamas dismissed the allegations and said the Israeli fuel delivery was a propaganda stunt. <\/p>\n
This story is being updated with additional developments.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n Premature babies at Gaza\u2019s largest hospital are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive in \u201ccatastrophic\u201d conditions, the hospital director has warned, as Israeli firepower pounds surrounding streets and remaining fuel reserves dry up, leaving the facility unable to function. Images show several newborn\u00a0babies\u00a0who <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11577","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\/11577","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=11577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}