Thousands of people are holed up in Gaza’s largest hospital, which Israel says is a Hamas command center.
The Israeli army has closed in on the entrance gates of Gaza’s largest hospital, where thousands of wounded and displaced people are trapped under intensive Israeli bombardment.
Israeli forces completely surrounded al-Shifa Hospital early Saturday morning, preventing ambulances from entering or leaving the facility, where medical supplies and food were running short.
“They attack and destroy the entrance gates of the main medical complex in the Gaza Strip while patients and thousands of Palestinians still reside in the courtyard of this hospital,” said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum.
“These people are really trapped right now by Israeli forces who are stationed in different areas and surrounding the entire site. They are no longer able to move ambulances to bring victims and injured people from targeted areas. People are trapped and lacking food.
Abu Azzoum said Israeli snipers and artillery also targeted anyone moving outside the hospital.
Al-Shifa director Muhammad Abu Salmiya described the area around the hospital as a “battlefield” but said hospital staff were committed to staying with patients until at the last moment “.
“We will not leave, because we know that if we leave the hospital, dozens of patients will die,” Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera.
The escalation of bombing comes after an Israeli strike on al-Shifa hospital early Friday, which killed at least 13 people and injured several others, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled enclave.
Health officials said later Friday that Israeli tanks were closing in on at least four hospitals in northern Gaza from all directions.
As fighting intensified Friday evening, Marwan Jilani, director general of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, condemned Israel for attacking hospitals at the U.N. Security Council in New York.
“People being displaced in hospitals are being shot as we speak,” Jilani said.
“They ask, ‘What can we do?’ Where can we go?’ Thousands of innocent lives are under imminent threat.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, echoed his concerns, saying he was “extremely disturbed” by the situation at al-Shifa hospital.
“Many of the thousands of people housed in hospital are forced to evacuate due to security risks, while many still remain there,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“WHO is very concerned about the safety of patients, health workers and people in hospitals. They need immediate protection.
We are extremely concerned by reports of airstrikes near Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza. Many health workers we came into contact with were forced to leave the hospital in search of safety. Others say they cannot move due to severe insecurity. A lot of…
– Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 10, 2023
Israel claimed the hospital was used by Hamas as a command center, something al-Shifa staff and the armed group denied.
The area around al-Shifa has been bombed at least five times since Thursday, according to Gaza health officials, while Israeli forces also hit al-Nasr Medical Center, al-Quds Hospital and the al-Rantisi hospital.
The WHO has confirmed that half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are not functioning and two-thirds of its primary care facilities are out of service due to the fighting.
At least 11,078 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to Palestinian health officials.
More than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed by Hamas during the armed group’s surprise attacks on Israel on October 7, according to Israeli officials.
