Combat hits Gaza hospitals as Israel confronts toll fears

AFP | Jerusalem

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Gaza hospitals reported being under constant fire and running on nearly exhausted supplies as Israel rejected key allies’ condemnation of a rising civilian death toll in the Hamas-controlled territory.

The director of the besieged Palestinian territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, said yesterday the compound was struck repeatedly overnight and lost power for hours after its generator was hit.

“We received calls about dozens of dead and hundreds wounded in air and artillery strikes, but our ambulances weren’t able to go out because of gunfire,” said hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya.

Israel has denied targeting hospitals and its army has accused Hamas of using the medical facilities as command centres and hideouts, a charge the Palestinian group denies.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said dozens of premature babies at Al-Shifa compound were at risk of dying because the lack of generator fuel meant their incubators could be shut down yesterday as fighting raged.

They added one of the babies had died, and one person was killed and several others wounded in a strike on Al-Shifa early yesterday.

The suffering in Gaza has prompted growing calls for a halt in five weeks of fighting in order to protect civilian lives and allow humanitarian aid into the densely populated territory.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself but urged it to stop strikes on civilians in Gaza: “These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed.”

The Gaza health ministry says Israeli fighting has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and thousands of them children.

Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed group present in Gaza, said yesterday its “fighters are engaged in fierce clashes in the vicinity of Al-Shifa hospital complex” and other areas of Gaza City, claiming to have caused “casualties in the ranks of the (Israeli) enemy forces”.

‘Far too many’ deaths

Concern over the civilian toll has also come from staunch Israel ally Washington, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Friday: “Far too many Palestinians have been killed.”

The conflict has stoked regional tensions, with deadly cross-border exchanges between the Israeli army and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

In northern Gaza, the director of the Indonesian hospital said lack of fuel forced the facility to cut power to thinks like their desalination plant, scanners and lifts.

“The hospital is working with 30-40 percent of its capacity,” Atef Al-Kahlot said. “We call on the honourable people of the world, if any of them are left, to put pressure on the occupation forces to supply the Indonesian hospital and the rest of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip.”

Hospitals have become key sites for Palestinians seeking refuge from the intense gun battles and bombardment.

A wounded boy at the Indonesian hospital, Youssef Al-Najjar, said he was waiting for surgery but the necessary machines were off due to lack of power.

“I’m very thirsty but I’m not allowed to drink or eat until the operation is done,” he added.

Twenty of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “no longer functioning”, the UN’s humanitarian agency said.