WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media that the “severely sick” children had been evacuated, along with six health workers and ten of their family members. He added that they were transferred to a hospital in the city of Rafah, south of Gaza, where they are receiving urgent care.
Muhammad Zaqout, director of Gaza’s hospitals, said that the children suffered from dehydration, vomiting, and hypothermia, and some of them suffered from infections because they did not receive any medication and were not in “appropriate conditions to survive.” He said they would go to Egypt to get more specialized care.
The WHO team that visited the hospital on Saturday said 291 patients were still there, including infants, patients with highly infected wounds and others with spinal injuries who were unable to move. Zaqout said that four children died in the two days before their visit.
The World Health Organization said that about 2,500 displaced people, mobile patients, and medical staff left Al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday morning. She added that 25 medical staff members were still with the patients, who she said were “fearing for their safety and health, and are requesting evacuation.”
The agency described the Shifa complex as a death zone.
Later on Sunday, the head of the hospital’s plastic surgery department, Dr. Ahmed Al-Makhalati, said that Israeli forces raided the surgery department, interrogated staff and patients, and arrested one of the patients. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the incident.
Israel has long claimed that Hamas maintains a sprawling command center in and under Shifa Hospital, part of its broader accusation that fighters are using civilians as cover.
It portrayed the hospital as a key target in its war to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza following the militant group’s large-scale attack on southern Israel six weeks ago, which killed more than 1,200 people and sparked the war.
Hamas and hospital workers previously denied these allegations of the existence of a command center affiliated with the Shifa organization.
#Pictures #Khadija #poor #condition #evacuated #AlShifa #Hospital #Gaza