Hospital outlook in Gaza worsens: medical center closes due to lack of fuel

The situation in Gaza’s hospitals worsened even more this Sunday with the closure of one of the main medical centers in the enclave, product of the lack of fuel and energy, while Israel says it is evacuating civilians sheltered in hospitals in the Strip.

“Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City is out of service and no longer operational,” the Palestinian Red Crescent reported. which detailed that “the interruption of services was due to the depletion of available fuel and the interruption of energy.”

In addition to the closure of several medical centers since the beginning of the conflict, the fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militiamen near Gaza hospitals They raise fears for the lives of thousands of civilians trapped in terrible conditions, according to doctors, including premature babies who lack the necessary care due to lack of supplies.

The Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the Palestinian territory, is involved in the Israeli ground offensive against Hamas, being the target of shots and attacks.

(Also read: Arab countries call for an end to the war in Gaza: ‘There will be no peace without a Palestinian State’)

The Ministry of Health of the Islamist movement assured this Sunday that an Israeli bombing destroyed the cardiology department building.

“The (Israeli) occupation is besieging the Al Shifa medical complex, deploying numerous drones in its airspace. “These drones fire intensely inside the hospital compound, injuring several people,” Hamas charged in a statement, describing the attacks as “a massacre” and “a planned and organized crime.”

The text also questioned that international organizations operating within Al Shifa have abandoned the clinic and urged everyone to “immediately go to the hospital to protect it, along with the medical teams and those inside.”

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 40 displaced people taking refuge in the hospital were attacked by Israeli forces as they attempted to evacuate the complex.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also stated this Sunday that it lost communication with Al Shifa staff.

(You can read: UN on the situation in Gaza: ‘All forms of collective punishment must end’)

“As horrific reports continue to emerge that the hospital is facing repeated attacks, We assume that our contacts have joined tens of thousands of displaced people who had sought refuge on the hospital grounds and are fleeing the area,” the UN agency said in a statement.

The director of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the situation at the medical center as “deeply worrying and terrifying,” as he published on his X account (formerly Twitter).

According to the latest reports received by the WHO, The hospital was surrounded by tanks and staff reported a lack of clean water and the risk that the last remaining critical functions, including ICUs, ventilators and incubators, would soon stop working due to lack of fuel, which would immediately endanger the lives of patients.

But the Israeli army, which accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centers or hideouts, denies deliberately attacking the hospital. And, on the contrary, he assures that his troops are allowing the evacuation of civilians from the Al Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals.

“The soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces opened and secured a passage that allows the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and in ambulances,” explained a military statement, which emphasized that for several days they have been insisting to the population of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south “for their safety.”

“The terrorist organization Hamas continues to use civilian structures in the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, for its terrorist activity,” added the Army, which denounced that the Islamist group has its headquarters just below the Al Shifa Hospital.

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The truth is Fear for patients and refugees in Al Shifa and other medical centers in Gaza is increasing and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stated that hospitals will become “morgues” without a ceasefire or evacuation.

MSF indicated that two premature babies died in Al Shifa because their incubators stopped working due to a lack of electricity. While Mohammed Obeid, an NGO surgeon at this center, stated that about forty newborns are hospitalized, 17 of them in intensive care.

According to the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 20 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are “out of service” due to lack of supplies for the siege of Israel. And humanitarian aid has entered in dribs and drabs into this territory of just 362 km2 where 2.4 million people live in overcrowded conditions.

Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas after the bloody attack carried out on October 7 by the Islamist movement on its territory, which left some 1,200 dead, mostly civilians, according to authorities. Some 240 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, according to the same source.

(Read on: Israel accepts four-hour-a-day ‘military pauses’ in northern Gaza, US says)

More than 11,000 people died in the Gaza Strip, also mostly civilians and many children, due to Israel’s offensive in response, according to the latest balance from the Ministry of Health of Hamas, which controls the Palestinian territory.

The ministry has not updated the casualty figures for two days, citing the collapse of hospital services.

INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL
*With EFE and AFP