Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City has closed “most of its operations” after running out of fuel and resisting daily Israeli bombardment around the medical complex since Sunday.
The hospital, located in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood and run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), said it had been forced to stop most services “to ration fuel consumption and ensure a level minimum of services in the coming days.”
It turned off its main generator and now only operates a smaller one to provide essential services and two hours of electricity per day to patients and the 14,000 displaced people who have taken shelter there. Its surgery department and oxygen production plant were closed.
PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told Al Jazeera: “We are talking about shelling about 15 meters (16 yards) from the hospital building. Most of the buildings around the hospital were almost completely destroyed. The bombings are getting closer and closer to the hospital and we fear that it will be directly hit.”
Most roads leading to Al-Quds Hospital were closed, forcing medics in ambulances to take a single, uneven, unpaved route to reach the injured.
“We have around 500 patients in the hospital. We have 15 patients in intensive care. They are injured and on ventilators. We have newborns in incubators. We have 14,000 displaced people, the majority of whom are women and children,” Farsakh said.
The PRCS “is running out of options,” he said, adding that it has repeatedly warned over the past two weeks that “fuel reserves will run out if Israeli occupying forces continue to refuse entry of fuel into the Gaza Strip.
Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza two days after the start of the war on October 7, strengthening the existing blockade in place since 2007 and severely limiting the entry of aid, food, water, electricity and fuel.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 18 hospitals have been put out of service since the start of the war, either because they lacked fuel or because of bombings.
❌Israeli bombings have continued since yesterday evening near Al-Quds hospital, on the west side.
🚑All roads leading to the hospital are closed. Medical teams cannot leave the hospital to reach the injured.#Gaza #GazaUnderAttack #NotATarget pic.twitter.com/RvG1SMMvSZ
– PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 8, 2023
Bashar Murad, director of emergency medical services at PRCS, who works at Al-Quds Hospital, described the situation at the facility “as the most catastrophic” in the organization’s history.
“On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes bombed the entrance to our hospital, killing four people at the entrance and injuring 35 people, 12 of whom were inside the hospital,” Murad said.
It added that half of its ambulances are out of service while its central storage area has been hit and partially destroyed.
“We lost all the medicines and equipment in the warehouses, worth around $5 million,” said Murad, whose family fled to Khan Younis.
“I stayed in Gaza (city) because I cannot leave my job in these circumstances. »
Bombings near hospitals
Israel has bombed near several hospitals in recent days, killing and injuring patients and displaced people and further reducing the provision of services.
Earlier on Wednesday, a mosque was hit near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where many displaced Palestinians had moved after responding to Israel’s calls to evacuate the north.
“Just 100 meters from the (Nasser) hospital, a mosque – the largest mosque in the region – was completely destroyed in an airstrike,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Khan Younis.
“What is disturbing about this airstrike is that it is taking place in the middle of a busy road – a main road leading to the side gate of the hospital and also a bustling market with so many people shopping basic necessities,” he explained.
“There is also a bakery next to the mosque where at least hundreds of people were waiting for bread,” he explained. The number of victims was not immediately known.
The Israeli army accused the Palestinian group Hamas of using the hospitals in its military campaign against Israel.
“Hamas places forces and weapons inside, under and around schools, mosques, homes and UN facilities,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel told reporters on Sunday. Hagari. “One of Hamas’s worst war crimes is the use of hospitals to hide its terrorist infrastructure. »
Hamas has repeatedly rejected this accusation.
The chairman of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, Mohammed al-Emadi, said Israel’s allegations were a “blatant attempt to justify the occupation’s targeting of civilian facilities, including hospitals, schools, rallies population and shelters for displaced people.
A recent Al Jazeera investigation found that there is no reason to support Israel’s claim that a Hamas tunnel lies beneath the Qatar-funded Sheikh Hamad Hospital in northern Syria. Gaza.
An Al Jazeera digital investigation found no basis for Israeli forces’ claim that there is a Hamas tunnel under Gaza’s Sheikh Hamad Hospital ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/4640OprGwk
– Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 7, 2023
Hospitals and ambulances were hit several times. The World Health Organization said at least 39 health facilities, including 22 hospitals, had been damaged since the war began.
Gaza’s health ministry said 193 health workers have been killed since the start of the war while 45 ambulances have been destroyed.
At least 10,569 Palestinians, including 4,324 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the conflict, while entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble. Around 1.5 million people are now displaced inside Gaza, according to the United Nations.
More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 that sparked the latest war in Gaza.
