A family of four carrying a white flag was trying to escape Saturday morning from Gaza's Shifa hospital, besieged by the Israeli army, when it came under fire from troops. A few meters after stepping into the street, several shots killed the mother and one of the two children and wounded the father and the other child. Dr. Khaled Abu Hamra, one of the doctors still holding on in the main health center in the capital of the Gaza Strip, told EL PAÍS in a telephone conversation. He says it happened around noon and, more than an hour later, they haven't even been able to pick up the bodies.
"We need to evacuate the hospital now, but they shoot everyone who tries to escape," adds the doctor, who describes a situation of "complete chaos", without internet, electricity, food or water and with "many victims on the ground". Patients, refugees and staff are not allowed to leave the facility due to constant shelling and gunfire, Abu Hamra said.
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Israel-Gaza war, live
20 of the 30 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are not functioning, according to Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila, who says the operations are carried out on the floor and without anesthesia. The lack of electricity supply at Shifa hospital keeps 38 premature babies in incubators at "risk of death" due to the lack of oxygen, the minister added in a statement. One of the babies had died a while before updating that information.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also warns of the difficulties with "thousands of wounded, displaced people and medical personnel at risk", as denounced by the regional director of the institution, Fabrizio Carboni, on the social network X (formerly Twitter), while requesting that they be protected according to the laws of war.
The situation is "catastrophic" at Shifa hospital, according to a statement from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which continues to have staff on the premises. One of them, Dr. Mohammed Obeid, warned on Friday: "There are many patients who have recently undergone surgery who cannot walk. They can't evacuate. They need an ambulance to transport them, and we don't have ambulances to evacuate all this number of patients," according to the testimony transcribed by the NGO, which also demands that the attacks on hospitals stop.
The alternative is to leave on foot, with Israeli troops already fighting in the heart of Gaza City, where the hospital is located. "We can't leave the hospital. We can't leave because from the morning until now we operate on 25 patients. If it's not me or the other surgeon, who will take care of the patients?" adds the health worker. "As a doctor, I swore to help people who need help. So if they want to bomb me, I won't be better than the others," Obeid concludes.
Israel claims to have killed a Hamas official, Ahmed Tsiam, who was holding some 1,000 Gazans "hostage" in the Rantisi hospital and not allowing them to leave the city to the south, as demanded by the military authorities. Tsiam was at a nearby school with other classmates when he was attacked, according to Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Palestinian girls wept during the funeral of the Faojo family, victims of Israeli shelling in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. SAID KHATIB (AFP)
A building damaged by Israeli shelling in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday. SAID KHATIB (AFP)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi (left) shakes hands with the deputy governor of the Riyadh region, Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Aabdulaziz, as he arrives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Raisi participates in an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Gaza. Iranian Presidency (AFP)
Unidentified bodies before being buried in a mass grave in the northern Gaza Strip. Anas al-Shareef (REUTERS)
A plume of smoke rose over Gaza on Saturday after Israeli strikes. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN (REUTERS)
A Palestinian man was picking up some things from the rubble of a building damaged by Israeli shelling in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.SAID KHATIB (AFP)
Supporters and relatives of Hezbollah fighter Mohammed Assaf, killed by the Israeli army, were taking part in his funeral south of Beirut, Lebanon. WAEL HAMZEH (EFE)
Israeli soldiers were patrolling inside the Gaza Strip on Saturday. Israeli army (AFP)
Palestinian women mourned their relatives killed in an Israeli bombardment at a hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday.Fatima Shbair (AP/LAPRESSE)
The Hamdan family's home, destroyed by Israeli forces in Khan Younis, on Saturday in the Gaza Strip.Mustafa Hassona (Anadolu/Getty Images)
Image taken from a video of the Israeli army destroying a building in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. Israeli Army (AFP)
Two Palestinian girls mourned their relatives killed by Israeli airstrikes outside the morgue of Rafah's An Najar hospital before their funeral. Abed Rahim Khatib (Anadolu/Getty Images)
Interior of the Hamdan family's home after the Israeli attack on the city of Khan Younis on Saturday. Mustafa Hassona (Anadolu/Getty Images)
Relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack wept before their funeral at the An Najar hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Abed Rahim Khatib (Anadolu/Getty Images)
A search for survivors in the rubble of a building demolished by Israeli strikes in Rafah on Saturday. Abed Rahim Khatib (Anadolu/Getty Images)
Palestinian civilians mourned the deaths of relatives killed during a bombardment in the Gaza Strip at Khan Younis hospital on Saturday. Fatima Shbair (AP)
Israeli troops' encirclement of hospitals in northern Gaza has tightened in recent days. Military spokesmen insist that these infrastructures, although they house wounded, civilian refugees and medical personnel, are also a base for Hamas militants, whom they accuse of fighting without uniform in order to be mistaken for civilians. According to the army, Hamas maintains one of its command centers in a facility located below the Shifa hospital.
Since the war began on 7 October, more than 11,000 Gazans have already been killed, most of them women and children, victims of the Israeli military operation.
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