GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday that Israeli forces have opened fire at hospital rooms, raising fears for the safety of 12 children in paediatric care. “The occupation (Israeli) forces have tightened the siege and the targeting of Kamal Adwan hospital, firing at patient rooms and courtyards,” ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement.
“We fear the death of 12 children in paediatric care who are already deprived of milk and are without life support equipment.” The Israeli army did not offer an immediate comment, while AFP was unable to confirm the situation at the hospital independently. On Tuesday Qudra said that Israeli forces had stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the Palestinian territory and were rounding up men in the courtyard.
The previous day, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said two mothers were killed when the maternity department of Kamal Adwan hospital was reportedly hit. In Wednesday’s statement, Qudra said that Israeli forces had detained hospital director Ahmed Al-Kahlot and other staff members who were “tortured and deprived of food and drink.”
Several of them were later released, he said. Qudra said the Israeli forces were also targeting Al-Awda hospital and tightening the siege of the facility, “depriving it of water, food and electricity.” Forces were also “preventing the wounded and sick from reaching” the hospital, he added. Israeli troops have previously raided other medical facilities in Gaza, including Al-Shifa, the territory’s largest hospital.
The military accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centers to plan and launch attacks against Israeli forces, a charge denied by the militant group. There is currently only one hospital in northern Gaza able to admit patients, according to the UN. Just 14 of 36 hospitals across the territory are functioning, providing limited health care while sheltering thousands of displaced people, the World Health Organization said Sunday.
More than 18,600 Gazans have been killed and almost 50,600 wounded since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted more than two months ago, according to the health ministry. Around 1,200 people were killed in an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7, Israeli officials say, which sparked the blistering military response on Gaza. The majority of war casualties in Israel and Gaza have been civilians.
Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian office said on Wednesday that Gaza faced a public health disaster due to the collapse of its health system and the spread of disease amid an offensive by Israel that has hit hospitals and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The United Nations and aid groups have sounded the alarm about the spread of infectious disease in Gaza, where the internal displacement of 85 percent of the population has caused overcrowding in shelters and other temporary living facilities.
Israel, which went to war in Gaza after the Palestinian enclave’s ruling Hamas militants launched a devastating attack on its southern communities on Oct. 7, has told civilians to flee battle zones and says it seeks avert humanitarian distress. “We all know that the health care system is or has collapsed,” said Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“We’ve got a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster.” WHO has reported a sharp rise in acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, lice, scabies and other fast-spreading diseases. Hastings said people in Gaza had to line up for hours just to access a toilet.
“You can imagine what the sanitation conditions are like,” she said. WHO said on Tuesday that only 11 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were partially functional, one in the north and 10 in the south of the enclave. In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said field hospitals had been erected within Gaza by the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. “We offered every possible help (and) we are prepared to do more,” Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Reuters.
“But one thing has to be clear. There is overlapping between medical system and hospitals and Hamas terrorist activities,” he said, reiterating Israeli allegations — denied by Hamas — that the Palestinian militants have been operating within hospitals. “So this is not something that we will tolerate.” Hasting said that almost half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million was now in Rafah in the southern tip of the enclave to escape Israeli bombardment. — Arab News
