Patients, staff and refugees left the Gaza Strip's largest hospital on Saturday, according to health officials, leaving behind only a small team that will care for those too sick to move and the Israeli forces that seized the compound earlier in the week.
The exodus from Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital coincides with the restoration of internet and phone service in the enclave after an outage that had forced the United Nations to suspend the delivery of critical humanitarian aid as it was unable tocoordinate vehicles.
Dozens of people were killed in the Jabaliya refugee camp on Saturday when, according to witnesses, an Israeli airstrike hit a U.N. shelter in the main combat zone in the northern Gaza Strip.
The bombing caused massive destruction at the school Fakhoura, according to two witnesses, Ahmed Radwan and Yassin Sharif. The men survived with minor injuries but dozens of people, including women and children, were unconscious, and others were bleeding.
"The scenes were horrifying. Bodies of women and children on the ground, others screaming for help," Radwan said by telephone. AP photos at the scene show more than 20 bodies covered in bloody sheets.
The Israeli forces, which had warned people to leave in Arabic on social media, did not immediately comment other than saying their troops were operating in the Jabaliya area "with the aim of targeting terrorists."
Israeli forces rarely comment on specific bombings, though they always emphasize that they are trying to strike Hamas targets without harming civilians.
"We are receiving horrifying images of people killed and injured at an UNRWA school housing thousands of displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip. These attacks cannot become routine, they must stop. We can't wait any longer for a humanitarian truce," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said on X, the platform formerly called Twitter.
Palestinians wounded in Israeli attacks wait on the floor of al-Shifa hospital to be treated. Photo: REUTERS
Israel Calls for Evacuation of Areas of Gaza City
Israel continued to expand its offensive in Gaza City, and the army warned in an Arabic-language message on social media that residents of two eastern and northern neighborhoods and the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya should leave the area for their safety.
Military activity would be briefly halted to allow for their departure, he added. Earlier this week, the Israeli Defense Ministry reported that its troops had completed the operation in the west of the city.
Attacks also continued in the southern Gaza Strip, where an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building on the outskirts of Khan Younis, killing at least 26 Palestinians, according to a doctor at the hospital where the bodies were taken.
The army has been searching the Shifa hospital for clues to the Hamas command center that Israeli authorities claim is underneath the hospital compound — something the insurgent group and center staff deny — and urged the thousands of people still in the compound to leave.
Military officials said Saturday that the center's director asked for help so that those who wanted to leave could do so through a safe route. The military said no evacuation was ordered and medical staff could stay behind to treat patients who could not be transferred.
Palestinians evacuated from southern Gaza amid the announcement of more Israeli bombardments against Hamas terrorists. Photo: EFE
But Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-controlled health ministry, said the army had ordered the evacuation of the facilities and given staff an hour to get people out.
Later, when it appeared that the evacuation was almost complete, Ahmed Mokhallalati, a doctor in Shifa, said on social media that there were about 120 patients who would not be able to leave, including some in intensive care and premature babies, and that he and five other doctors stayed behind to treat them.
It was not immediately clear where those who evacuated the center had gone as 25 of the territory's hospitals were not functioning due to lack of fuel, damage and other problems, and another 11 were partially operational, according to the World Health Organization.
Israel has hinted that it plans to expand its campaign southward while continuing its operations in the north. In Khan Younis, the early Saturday attack hit Hamad City, a middle-class housing estate built in recent years with Qatari funding. In addition to the 26 dead, 20 more people were wounded, said Dr. Nehad Taeima at Nasser hospital.
Israel insists it is attacking Hamas and trying to prevent harm to civilians, though it says the extremist group uses civilians — and now hostages — as human shields.
The war, which is in its seventh week, was sparked by Hamas' savage attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, in which terrorists killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and held some 240 men, women and children hostage.
Since the beginning of the conflict, more than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed. Another 2,700 were reported missing and are believed to be buried under the rubble. The official count does not differentiate between civilian and combatant casualties, but more than two-thirds of the dead have been women and children, and Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
Humanitarian crisis
The United Nations warned that the Gaza's 2.3 million people face severe shortages of food and water, but it was not immediately clear whether its Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, would be able to resume aid deliveries that had to be halted on Friday.
The Palestinian telecommunications provider said it was able to reactivate its generators with fuel donated by UNRWA. The end of the blackout saw the return of news and messages from reporters and activists in the beleaguered enclave to their social media profiles from Friday night.
Gaza's main power plant shut down at the beginning of the war and Israel has cut off electricity supplies. This means that fuel is needed to power the generators that run not only communication networks, but also water treatment flats, sanitation, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure.
Israel has banned fuel from the start of the war, saying Hamas could divert it for military purposes. It has also blocked the entry of food, water and other supplies, except for the trickle across the border into Egypt, which aid workers say is far less than necessary.
An Israeli soldier, during the ground operation in the Gaza Strip. Photo: REUTERS
Going forward, Israel has said it will allow 10,000 liters of fuel each day to run communications, according to the U.S. State Department. In addition, Israel agreed on Friday - at the request of the United States - to allow a "very minimal" daily allocation for humanitarian causes, Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said.
COGAT, the Israeli army department in charge of Palestinian affairs, said the U.N. will receive 60,000 liters daily.
But this is just 37 per cent of the fuel UNRWA needs to sustain its humanitarian operations, including food distribution and maintenance of hospital generators and sanitation and water plants, the UN said.
Gaza has received just 10 percent of the food it needs daily in convoys arriving from Egypt, according to the UN, and the collapse of the water system has forced most of the population to drink contaminated water, which in turn has caused an outbreak of disease.
Dehydration and malnutrition are on the rise and nearly all residents need food, according to the U.N. World Food Program.
Separately, Israel's military said Saturday that its aircraft hit what it described as an insurgents' hideout in an urban Balata refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service, the attack claimed the lives of five Palestinians.
The army maintains that the attackers planned to carry out imminent attacks against Israeli civilians and military targets.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, 210 Palestinians have been killed in violence in the West Bank. It is the deadliest period in the territory since the second Palestinian intifada in the early 2000s.
Source: AP
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