Urgent Crisis in Gaza: Hospitals Evacuated, Patients Left Without Care

2023-11-12 23:50:30

Agence France-Presse quoted the director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip as saying on Sunday that the “forced evacuation” of two children’s hospitals in the Strip had brought patients “on the streets without medical care.”

The director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Muhammad Zaqout, said, “The forced evacuation of Al-Nasr and Al-Rantissi Children’s Hospitals took patients out onto the streets without medical care,” adding, “We completely lost contact with the medical staff at Al-Nasr and Al-Rantissi Children’s Hospitals.”

Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli army spoke of opening “a safe corridor that enables the civilian population to leave on foot or by ambulance from Al-Shifa, Al-Rantisi, and Nasser hospitals.”

Zaqout called for “saving children in nurseries because time is running out to save their lives.”

On Saturday, Israel announced that its soldiers would help evacuate newborn babies on Sunday.

For her part, Director of the Medical Aid Society for Palestinians (MAP), Melanie Ward, said: “Ambulances are unable to reach the hospital, especially those that have the necessary equipment to transport these children, and there is no hospital that has the capacity to receive them, so we have no indication that “These transfers can be carried out safely.”

An ambulance driver for Al-Shifa Hospital reported in contact with Agence France-Presse that ambulances were exposed to sniper fire while trying to approach the bodies.

Zaqout explained, “We submitted requests to bury the bodies, but everyone who moves in the hospital yard is being targeted. We are no longer able to count those who fell in the bombing due to the impossibility of reaching them.”

He continued, “The occupation targeted the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital and Mahdi Maternity Hospital,” noting that “kidney, cancer, and heart patients have nowhere to go and no safe passage,” and stressed the necessity of “bringing fuel into the Gaza Strip quickly.”

Al-Quds Hospital, which now houses thousands of displaced people, has become “out of service due to a lack of fuel” for its generators, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed on Sunday that Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza was also out of service.

Israel says that Hamas militants have set up command centers under and around these hospitals and that it wants to reach them to free regarding 200 hostages held by the movement since their surprise attack on Israel more than a month ago, while Hamas denies using the hospitals in this way.

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