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One other hospital within the Gaza Strip got here below hearth on Monday, because the World Well being Group warned that the enclave’s devastated well being system had largely collapsed, with none of its functioning hospitals able to dealing with sophisticated medical instances.
No less than 12 folks had been killed and dozens of others had been wounded within the newest assault, on the Indonesian Hospital within the far northern metropolis of Beit Lahia, based on two hospital employees members and the Gazan well being ministry within the Hamas-run territory.
It got here lower than per week after Israeli forces raided Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza Metropolis, about 5 miles to the west, in an effort to seize and expose what it says had been in depth Hamas operations inside and beneath the hospital, together with underground bunkers, a command middle and a community of tunnels. Hamas and hospital directors deny that the militant group used the grounds of Al-Shifa or different hospitals for navy operations.
The supply of the strike on the Indonesian Hospital couldn’t be independently verified, as heavy preventing raged round it. The Gazan well being ministry blamed Israeli forces for the assault.
The Israeli navy mentioned in an announcement that its troops had come below hearth in a single day “from inside” the hospital. It mentioned it had “immediately focused the particular supply of enemy hearth,” however that “no shells had been fired towards the hospital.” The assertion didn’t elaborate on the seeming contradiction.
Worldwide teams, together with the World Well being Group, a United Nations company, have repeatedly urged that hospitals not be focused within the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The group’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, mentioned he was “appalled” by stories of the newest strike.
“Well being employees and civilians ought to by no means need to be uncovered to such horror, and particularly whereas inside a hospital,” he said in an announcement on Monday.
At a information convention, two W.H.O. officers painted a dire image of the well being care system in Gaza after weeks of preventing. They mentioned hospitals within the north couldn’t take any extra sufferers and almost all had stopped working as well being care facilities. Extra are functioning within the south, they mentioned, however extra like group clinics with out the capability to deal with advanced accidents or carry out superior surgical procedures.
Michael Ryan, govt director of the W.H.O.’s Well being Emergencies Program, advised reporters that “solely 10 of the 36 hospitals that had been functioning at the moment are functioning in any method in any respect, and even they’re struggling to perform.”
He warned that the dire circumstances in Gaza, with 1.7 million folks displaced from their properties and a lot of the inhabitants now crowded into the south, considerably raised the chance of epidemic illness, with folks sheltering in tight quarters or tent camps with out ample meals and hygiene.
The strike on the Indonesian Hospital solely added to the sense of disaster. The hospital, which was financed by the Indonesian authorities and operated by the Gaza Well being Ministry, was hit round 2:30 a.m. after Israeli tanks drew nearer to the compound amid fixed shelling and gunfire, based on a nurse and a hospital administrator.
Recent video shot within the space and geolocated by The New York Occasions confirmed a number of Israeli tanks inside just a few hundred yards of the hospital and transferring towards it.
The 2 employees members mentioned Monday that the second flooring of the hospital, the place dozens of sufferers and displaced folks had been sleeping, was hit by artillery hearth.
“There was chaos, darkness and hearth within the division, which made it very troublesome to evacuate the useless and wounded,” mentioned Mohamad, the nurse. He and the hospital administrator requested that their full names not be used as a result of they feared for his or her security.
Video shot by Palestinian journalists and verified by The Occasions confirmed devastation in a ward of the hospital on Monday, with our bodies and wreckage sprawled throughout the ground, and particles hanging from the ceiling. A video made on Sunday confirmed the identical inside intact, with a lady sitting on the ground, making bread on a transportable range.
No less than 500 sufferers and 1000’s of displaced folks had been contained in the hospital when it was struck, the administrator mentioned. “It’s doable that what occurred at Al-Shifa Hospital can even occur to us,” he added, referring to the seizure by Israeli forces of that hospital final week.
After the strike and simply earlier than dawn, dozens of individuals, together with Mohamad, had been in a position to go away in a panic amid shelling and gunfire, he mentioned.
The administrator stayed behind with tons of of others, together with sufferers on ventilators and in essential situation. Evacuating them can be troublesome and would require coordination with humanitarian organizations and the Israeli navy, he mentioned.
Gaza’s well being ministry mentioned in an announcement that it was in contact with the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross a couple of doable evacuation of the wounded. The Purple Cross mentioned in an announcement that any evacuation can be “extraordinarily advanced.”
The hospital can be working low on gas, and its primary generator may shut down as early as Monday evening, the administrator mentioned.
On Monday, 28 untimely infants who had been moved from Al-Shifa Hospital to a different hospital in southern Gaza had been taken throughout the border to Egypt for medical care, based on the United Nations and an Egyptian state tv community, Al Qahera Information.
The infants had been a part of a gaggle of 31 infants who had been moved by a U.N.-led group on Sunday as medical providers at Al-Shifa deteriorated. It was not instantly clear why three of the infants had not been taken to Egypt.
5 others who had been cared for at Al-Shifa died earlier than they may very well be evacuated, based on the United Nations.
As considerations mounted concerning the toll of the conflict, diplomatic efforts had been persevering with to finish or at the least pause the preventing and probably safe the discharge of a number of the greater than 200 hostages who had been taken by Hamas through the Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
President Biden, requested on Monday if negotiators had been near a deal to free hostages, mentioned: “I consider so,” and “sure,” and held up two crossed fingers on the annual White Home occasion the place the president pardons turkeys earlier than Thanksgiving.
Farnaz Fassihi, Ameera Harouda, Malachy Browne, Arijeta Lajka, Isabel Kershner, Chris Buckley, Nader Ibrahim and Michael Levenson and Vivian Yee contributed reporting.
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