Lives of hundreds of patients at risk at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital
The director general of hospitals in Gaza warned that the lives of hundreds of patients are at risk due to the catastrophic situation at Al-Shifa hospital as Israel intensified its deadly strikes on the Palestinian territory, especially on the region’s health centers.
About 650 patients, including 36 children, have their lives in danger, Muhammad Zaqout said at a press conference, calling on Egypt to save their lives.
Zaqout also confirmed the presence of “about 1,500 displaced people in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex,” warning that “accumulation of garbage and medical waste, lack of water, and power outages threaten everyone’s life”.
Clashes reported around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of wounded and displaced Palestinians are trapped. The compound has been repeatedly hit by strikes in recent days, one of which Hamas health officials said destroyed the cardiac ward on Sunday.
“The occupier (Israel) completely destroyed the cardiac department of Al-Shifa hospital... The two-storey building has been completely destroyed in an air strike,” Youssef Abu Rish, deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.
Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said Israeli forces “are not evacuating people from hospitals; instead, they are forcibly evicting the wounded and patients onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death”.
The Israeli military, which has killed more than 4,000 children since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza, pledged on Saturday to aid the evacuation of babies from the hospital, claiming that “staff of the Al-Shifa hospital has requested that”.
Inside Al-Shifa hospital, Doctors Without Borders surgeon Mohammed Obeid said there was no water, power, food or internet access for about 600 post-operative patients, 37-40 babies and 17 people in intensive care.
The surgeon said in an audio message posted Saturday on social media that two babies died in the Al-Shifa neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off and a man also died when his ventilator shut down.
Attack on UN compound
Meanwhile, the United Nations said several people have been killed and wounded in Israeli strikes on a UN facility in Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians have taken refuge to escape the war.
“The shelling has reportedly resulted in a significant number of deaths and injuries,” the United Nations Development Programme said in a statement issued late Saturday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for pressure on the United States to stop Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but said there would be no agreement unless Washington accepted the region as Palestinian land.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday ruled out a role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Gaza once the war is over.
“There will have to be something else there,” he said, when asked whether the PA, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war.
Erdogan returned from a summit on Saturday of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Israel’s ‘barbaric’ actions
Arab and Muslim leaders at the summit condemned Israeli forces “barbaric” actions in Gaza.
The final declaration on Saturday rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in “self-defense”, and demanded that the UN Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression”.
“The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel... It’s vital for us to secure a cease-fire,” Erdogan said. He said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land.
“We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches (the conflict) by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people,” he said.
Turkey has been an increasingly vocal critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which was triggered after Hamas fighters staged an October 7 attack into the occupied territories which killed around 1,200 people.
Israel’s relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest figures from the Health Ministry in Gaza.
New protests
Fresh demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians were also held in many countries. On Sunday, protesters took to the streets of Australia’s largest city, Sydney, demanding an end to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Similar protests were also held in many European cities including London, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, Dublin and Berlin on Saturday. Argentina’s capital and South Africa’s Cape Town were also the scene of anti-Israel demonstrations.