AFP | Gaza
Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Israeli forces engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas near Gaza’s largest hospital yesterday, trapping thousands of people and shutting down the main medical center nearby due to fuel shortages.
The Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip announced yesterday that the death toll from the fighting had risen to 11,180. The government press office said the dead included 4,609 children and 3,100 women, with another 28,200 injured.
In Gaza City, al-Shifa Hospital has been caught up in Israeli ground attacks aimed at annihilating Hamas, and the compound has been hit by repeated airstrikes, one of which destroyed the cardiac ward yesterday, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Announced.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City has stopped functioning due to a lack of fuel for its generators, raising concerns among Palestinians seeking shelter and patients in need of medical treatment.
“Hospitals have been forced to fend for themselves following continued Israeli shelling, posing serious risks to medical staff, patients and displaced populations,” it added. Witnesses at Al Shifa Hospital told AFP by phone that “violent fighting” had taken place around the hospital overnight.
And on Saturday, doctors announced that two infants died after their incubators were cut off in the neonatal ward, and a man also died after his ventilator stopped working. Mohammad Zakut, who oversees all hospitals in the Gaza Strip, said “no one can enter or leave” the hospitals.
safe passage
The Israeli military announced yesterday that a “safe passage” would be opened from al-Shifa to allow people to evacuate south. But “the situation in al-Shifa is catastrophic,” Zakut told AFP.
The United Nations humanitarian agency says 20 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “no longer functional.” Little aid has reached Gaza during the war, and the densely populated coastal area is effectively sealed off by a total blockade that Israel has vowed to maintain until the hostages are freed.