2023-11-18 21:38:00
AFP photo
Most of the more than 2,000 people who were in the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip left the facilities this Saturday, although Israel denied having given an evacuation order, as denounced by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which also accused the Israeli army of an attack on a refugee camp that left more than 80 dead.
The general director of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, Munir al Bursh, stated in statements to the Al Jazeera network that Israel called for the evacuation of the Al Shifa hospital, where there are still five doctors supervising the process of evacuating the wounded.
The evacuation occurred after an order issued by the Israeli forces, who were carrying out a military operation in the hospital for the fourth consecutive day and who demanded early by loudspeaker to leave the place “in one hour”, according to what was reported by a journalist from the AFP news agency at the scene.
According to the UN, at least 2,300 patients, medical personnel and those displaced by the war were in the hospital, a huge complex in the west of Gaza City.
However, the Israeli forces issued a statement shortly after in which they deny having ordered the forced evacuation of the center, but rather are working in collaboration with the Al Shifa authorities to offer a safe corridor for those patients who want to evacuate, the agency reported. Europa Press news.
According to the UN, at least 2,300 patients, medical personnel and those displaced by the war were in the hospital, a huge complex in the west of Gaza City.
They left the hospital on foot, but medical officials said that 120 patients are still inside because they cannot move. Among them are premature babies, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
The Israeli military, whose tanks surround the health center, is searching “building by building” the complex that Israel says houses Hamas facilities, particularly a network of underground tunnels.
Photo: AFP.
The Palestinian Islamist movement denies these accusations and says that Israel uses them as a pretext to attack the site.
The hospital has been without electricity for several days and department heads say that dozens of patients died because the medical equipment stopped working.
On the other hand, Hamas denounced this Saturday that more than 80 people were killed in two Israeli attacks against a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, including one on a UN school.
Photo: AFP.
The first attack occurred “at dawn, at the Al Fakhura school,” run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), a Gaza Health Ministry official said.
“We are receiving horrendous images of many dead and injured, once again in a UNRWA school that housed thousands of displaced people,” wrote the commissioner general of that agency, Philippe Lazzarini, on the X network (formerly Twitter). “These attacks (…) must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer,” he added.
According to medical sources cited by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, dozens of dead and wounded from this attack, mostly children and women, were transferred to the Indonesian hospital in Gaza.
The military forces and the Government of Israel did not comment on the incident.
Images circulating on social media show bodies, some covered in blood, others in dust, on the floors of the building, where mattresses had been installed under school desks.
Another bombing against a building in the same camp left 32 dead from the same family, 19 of them children, said the same Health Ministry source.
Photo: AFP.
According to medical sources cited by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, dozens of dead and wounded from this attack, mostly children and women, were transferred to the Indonesian hospital in Gaza.
The attack occurred in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the north of the Gaza Strip, which was already the target of bombings in early November, when the Hamas government announced more than 200 deaths and hundreds of injuries in Israeli offensives spread across three days.
It is the largest camp in the enclave, where more than 80% of the inhabitants are refugees or descendants of refugees who left their homes in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel.
On October 7, Hamas carried out an incursion into southern Israel in which it killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while another 240 were kidnapped, including twenty Argentines.
On October 7, Hamas carried out an incursion into southern Israel in which it killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while another 240 were kidnapped, including twenty Argentines.
Some 12,300 Palestinians, including 5,000 children, have since died in Gaza in incessant bombardments by the Israeli Army, according to the latest balance sheet by the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip.
Photo: AFP.
In this context, thousands of people led by relatives of the hostages marched through Jerusalem this Saturday to demand that the Israeli authorities make more efforts to free those held since October 7.
The group left walking on Tuesday from Tel Aviv and after traveling 60 kilometers they arrived in Jerusalem this Friday, where this Saturday they mobilized to demand the appearance of the kidnapped people.
Yuval Haran, one of the participants in the march and a direct relative of one of the hostages, said that they will continue to pressure “by all means” until they achieve the release of their relatives, reported the local newspaper Time.
Another family member attacked the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for allowing the entry of two trucks of fuel per day into the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian pauses: “It takes us even further away from the objective that you set for yourself,” according to the Times. of Israel.
Images circulating on social media show bodies, some covered in blood, others in dust, on the floors of the building, where mattresses had been installed under the school desks.
The Israeli war cabinet authorized this Friday the daily entry of two trucks with fuel into the enclave to “allow the minimum necessary maintenance of the water, sewage and sanitation systems to avoid pandemics that could spread to the entire area.”
However, Unrwa stated this Saturday that this amount covers “only half of the minimum needs” of the population in the enclave.
“This is far from enough to cover the needs of desalination plants, sewage pumps, hospitals, shelter water pumps, aid trucks, ambulances, bakeries and communications networks so that function without interruption,” Lazzarini listed.
“Without the full amount of fuel, people will have only two-thirds of their daily needs for clean drinking water; large areas of Gaza will remain inundated with sewage, further increasing the risk of disease; 70% of solid waste, which poses a serious danger to health,” he added.
#Hundreds #evacuated #Gazas #largest #hospital #reports #attacks #refugee #camp