Gaza hospitals out of fuel

AFP | Gaza                                                  

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Israeli troops waged fierce battles against Hamas yesterday near Gaza’s biggest hospital, where thousands were trapped and a lack of fuel forced a nearby major medical centre out of service.

The Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip said yesterday the death toll from fighting had risen to 11,180. The government media office said the dead included 4,609 children and 3,100 women, whilst a further 28,200 people have been wounded.

In Gaza City, Al-Shifa hospital is caught in Israel’s ground offensive aimed at destroying Hamas, and the compound has been repeatedly hit by strikes, one of which Gaza’s health ministry said destroyed the cardiac ward yesterday.

Fears intensified for Palestinians seeking shelter and patients needing treatment after Gaza City’s Al-Quds hospital went out of service due to a lack of generator fuel, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

“The hospital has been left to fend for itself under ongoing Israeli bombardment, posing severe risks to the medical staff, patients and displaced civilians,” it added. Witnesses at Al-Shifa hospital told AFP by phone that “violent fighting” had raged around the hospital the whole night.

And inside, doctors said Saturday that two babies had died in the neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off, and a man had also died when his ventilator shut down. “No one can enter or leave” the hospital, said Mohammad Zaqut, who oversees all hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

Safe passage

A “safe passage” was to be opened from Al-Shifa to allow people to flee toward the south, the Israeli military said yesterday. But “the situation in Al-Shifa is catastrophic”, Zaqut told AFP.

Twenty of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are “no longer functioning”, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency. Very little aid has made it into Gaza during the war, with the densely populated coastal territory effectively sealed off by a total blockade that Israel has vowed to maintain until the hostages are freed.