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One other hospital within the Gaza Strip got here underneath fireplace on Monday, because the World Well being Group warned that the enclave’s devastated well being system had largely collapsed, with none of its functioning hospitals able to dealing with difficult medical instances.
Not less than 12 folks had been killed and dozens of others had been wounded within the newest assault, on the Indonesian Hospital within the far northern metropolis of Beit Lahia, in accordance with two hospital workers members and the Gazan well being ministry within the Hamas-run territory.
It got here lower than every week after Israeli forces raided Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza Metropolis, about 5 miles to the west, in an effort to seize and expose what it says had been in depth Hamas operations inside and beneath the hospital, together with underground bunkers, a command middle and a community of tunnels. Hamas and hospital directors deny that the militant group used the grounds of Al-Shifa or different hospitals for navy operations.
The supply of the strike on the Indonesian Hospital couldn’t be independently verified, as heavy preventing raged round it. The Gazan well being ministry blamed Israeli forces for the assault.
The Israeli navy mentioned in an announcement that its troops had come underneath fireplace in a single day “from inside” the hospital. It mentioned it had “instantly focused the particular supply of enemy fireplace,” however that “no shells had been fired towards the hospital.” The assertion didn’t elaborate on the seeming contradiction.
Worldwide teams, together with the World Well being Group, a United Nations company, have repeatedly urged that hospitals not be focused within the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The group’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, mentioned he was “appalled” by stories of the most recent strike.
“Well being staff and civilians ought to by no means need to be uncovered to such horror, and particularly whereas inside a hospital,” he mentioned in an announcement on Monday.
At a information convention, two W.H.O. officers painted a dire image of the well being care system in Gaza after weeks of preventing. They mentioned hospitals within the north couldn’t take any extra sufferers and practically all had stopped working as well being care facilities. Extra are functioning within the south, they mentioned, however extra like group clinics with out the capability to deal with complicated accidents or carry out superior surgical procedures.
Michael Ryan, government director of the W.H.O.’s Well being Emergencies Program, instructed reporters that “solely 10 of the 36 hospitals that had been functioning are actually functioning in any method in any respect, and even they’re struggling to operate.”
He warned that the dire circumstances in Gaza, with 1.7 million folks displaced from their properties and many of the inhabitants now crowded into the south, considerably raised the chance of epidemic illness, with folks sheltering in tight quarters or tent camps with out ample meals and hygiene.
The strike on the Indonesian Hospital solely added to the sense of disaster. The hospital, which was financed by the Indonesian authorities and operated by the Gaza Well being Ministry, was hit round 2:30 a.m. after Israeli tanks drew nearer to the compound amid fixed shelling and gunfire, in accordance with a nurse and a hospital administrator.
Current video shot within the space and geolocated by The New York Occasions confirmed a number of Israeli tanks inside a number of hundred yards of the hospital and transferring towards it.
The 2 workers members mentioned Monday that the second ground of the hospital, the place dozens of sufferers and displaced folks had been sleeping, was hit by artillery fireplace.
“There was chaos, darkness and fireplace within the division, which made it very troublesome to evacuate the lifeless and wounded,” mentioned Mohamad, the nurse. He and the hospital administrator requested that their full names not be used as a result of they feared for his or her security.
Video shot by Palestinian journalists and verified by The Occasions confirmed devastation in a ward of the hospital on Monday, with our bodies and wreckage sprawled throughout the ground, and particles hanging from the ceiling. A video made on Sunday confirmed the identical inside intact, with a girl sitting on the ground, making bread on a conveyable range.
Not less than 500 sufferers and hundreds of displaced folks had been contained in the hospital when it was struck, the administrator mentioned. “It’s potential that what occurred at Al-Shifa Hospital will even occur to us,” he added, referring to the seizure by Israeli forces of that hospital final week.
After the strike and simply earlier than dawn, dozens of individuals, together with Mohamad, had been in a position to depart in a panic amid shelling and gunfire, he mentioned.
The administrator stayed behind with a whole lot of others, together with sufferers on ventilators and in crucial situation. Evacuating them could be troublesome and would require coordination with humanitarian organizations and the Israeli navy, he mentioned.
Gaza’s well being ministry mentioned in an announcement that it was in contact with the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross a few potential evacuation of the wounded. The Pink Cross mentioned in an announcement that any evacuation could be “extraordinarily complicated.”
The hospital can be operating low on gas, and its foremost generator may shut down as early as Monday night time, the administrator mentioned.
On Monday, 28 untimely infants who had been moved from Al-Shifa Hospital to a different hospital in southern Gaza had been taken throughout the border to Egypt for medical care, in accordance with the United Nations and an Egyptian state tv community, Al Qahera Information.
The infants had been a part of a gaggle of 31 infants who had been moved by a U.N.-led group on Sunday as medical companies at Al-Shifa deteriorated. It was not instantly clear why three of the infants had not been taken to Egypt.
5 others who had been cared for at Al-Shifa died earlier than they might be evacuated, in accordance with the United Nations.
As considerations mounted concerning the toll of the conflict, diplomatic efforts had been persevering with to finish or not less than pause the preventing and probably safe the discharge of a number of the greater than 200 hostages who had been taken by Hamas in the course of the Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
President Biden, requested on Monday if negotiators had been near a deal to free hostages, mentioned: “I imagine so,” and “sure,” and held up two crossed fingers on the annual White Home occasion the place the president pardons turkeys earlier than Thanksgiving.
Farnaz Fassihi, Ameera Harouda, Malachy Browne, Arijeta Lajka, Isabel Kershner, Chris Buckley, Nader Ibrahim and Michael Levenson and Vivian Yee contributed reporting.
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