2023-11-11 17:40:22
The Israeli army is intensifying its attacks on the Shifa hospital in Gaza this Saturday, November 11. “Israeli tanks are surrounding this facility, which is the largest hospital in Gaza, located in the city center, with intensive bombardment. They haven’t been inside yet at this time., but they are bombing and throwing white phosphorus around this hospital,” said Saturday, November 11 at 6 a.m., Ziad Medoukh, a resident of the establishment who chose to stay in Gaza City.
“We hear from my home the loud noises of tanks launching missiles and bombings, they want to sow terror and put pressure on the 20,000 displaced people, the 10,000 injured, the 5,000 patients and chronically ill people and on the staff medicaladds this head of the French department at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza on WhatsApp. The situation is dramatic for doctors and nurses. There are many dead and wounded, but the ambulances cannot move when there is a bombing in another neighborhood because the tanks surround the hospital. »
On Saturday, Dr. Marwan Abou Sada, head of surgery at the hospital, added in an audio testimony, published by the British NGO Medical aid for Palestinians (MAD), that “People who were trying to evacuate this morning were shot at in the streets.”
In the care units, the situation is just as appalling. At the end of the day, Physician for Human Rights-Israel, an Israeli NGO announced that “two premature babies (were) dead” after the forced shutdown of neonatal intensive care due to lack of power in the establishment. There is a “real risk for the lives of the other 37 premature babies” of this service, PHRI alert.
Damaged maternity ward and intensive care unit
Shifa Hospital is not the only one to be targeted. “ All hospitals in Gaza City were targeted » by the Israeli army, its director, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, said on Friday.
“Since the afternoon of November 9, Israeli bombardments around hospitals in the north have intensified, confirms the UN agency responsible for humanitarian coordination (Ocha). The area around Shifa Hospital was hit five times during this period, killing at least seven people, and the maternity ward was damaged. On the evening of November 9, the buildings surrounding the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya (northern Gaza) were bombed several times (…). Around the same time, Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City was directly hit, causing fires and damage. In the early hours of November 10, the area around Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia and Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City were bombed; the latter’s intensive care unit was damaged,” lists the agency in its daily update.
The IDF did not comment directly on these remarks but indicated that it “would kill” Hamas fighters “who shoot from hospitals” in Gaza, claiming in the evening to have eliminated “around 150 terrorists”.
Israeli troops claim to be targeting in particular a “military quarter” of Hamas, adjacent to the Shifa hospital, described by the army as the ” heart “ operational and intelligence activities of the armed Islamist movement. Israel justifies its operations around and against hospitals by claiming that Hamas uses them as headquarters and operates tunnels under these establishments. The Jewish state also accuses the movement of using civilians as human shields, which the movement denies.
“Acts of war in places of grace must stop”
On October 28, the IDF broadcast a video presented as confession of Hamas fighter arrested after the massacre of October 7, in which he declared that most of the men of the movement were hidden in hospitals and that “Shifa has underground levels (…) in a place big enough to hide things. » The detainee adds that his movement “exploits to one’s advantage” medical establishments “so that you (the Israeli army) do not hit them.” And to add in this document relayed by the army on social networks, including in French: “They can get anything done. Explosives, weapons, food, medical equipment for them. »
Since the start of the war, and while the number of wounded continues to grow, 20 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are no longer functional, according to Ocha. The head of UN humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, recalled on Friday that« under international humanitarian law, hospitals must be protected.” “Acts of war in places of grace must stop. »
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