Palestinian health officials have called for a humanitarian corridor to three hospitals in northern Gaza that nearly collapsed after Israeli troops cut off the area for nearly two weeks from a new ground attack.
Doctors at Kamal Adwan, al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals refused to leave their patients despite evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army at the start of the offensive in the Jabalia region, north of Gaza, ago 12 days.
“We call on the international community, the Red Cross and the World Health Organization, to play their humanitarian role by opening a corridor to our health system and allowing the entry of fuel, medical care, delegations, supplies and food,” Hussam said. Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Wednesday.
“We are talking about more than 300 medical staff working at Kamal Adwan Hospital, and we cannot even provide them with a single meal to be able to offer medical services safely.”
Besides Jabalia, the Israeli ground attack in ravaged northern Gaza also targeted Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya. The area has been repeatedly bombarded and invaded by Israeli ground troops since Israel launched its attack on Gaza last October.
Since the last incursion, it has been completely sealed off, according to Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal.
The UN estimates that some 400,000 people are trapped in northern Gaza and have been unable to leave due to intense bombardment, as well as the presence of Israeli snipers and ground troops.
For 12 days, no food has been delivered to the area, Basal said.
“Not only are they trapped, but they also lack food, drink and medicine,” he said, adding that scarce medical supplies are also dwindling.
Gaza’s health ministry said the continuing Israeli offensive had killed around 350 Palestinians in and around Jabalia.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City on Wednesday killed 13 people, doctors said. In its daily update, Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli military strikes had killed at least 65 Palestinians in the enclave in the past 24 hours.
Munir al-Bursh, director general of Gaza’s health ministry, said more than half of the dead are women and children and while many bodies remain in the streets and under the rubble, rescue teams cannot having been unable to reach them due to Israeli strikes.
“Entire families have disappeared,” al-Bursh said.
“People are starving”
The dire humanitarian situation has sparked worldwide concern, with the United States issuing one of its strongest warnings to Israel that it must improve the situation or face possible restrictions on military aid.
“A policy of starvation in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and American law,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Wednesday at a meeting of the UN Security Council.
The United States has already vetoed several resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza.
France and China also called for an end to the war and immediate humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.
The Israeli army, for its part, said it had killed more than 50 Palestinian fighters in airstrikes and close combat in recent days. He has asked people to evacuate to what he claims are safer areas in the south, fueling fears among Palestinians that this campaign aims to permanently expel them from northern Gaza.
The Israeli military denies restricting aid supplies, saying that since October 1, more than 9,000 tons of humanitarian aid, including food, water, gas, shelter equipment and medical supplies, entered Gaza through various crossing points.
He said part of this aid had been transferred directly to northern Gaza. The Gaza government’s media office refuted the claim, saying Israel’s “lies” about allowing the trucks are completely false.
“Nothing has entered northern Gaza. People in northern Gaza are starving,” said Hadeel Obeid, a nursing supervisor at the Indonesian hospital, where 28 patients were being treated.
“Our administrative manager only provides one meal to everyone, including doctors, nurses, patients and their companions. “It’s a small amount, not enough for an adult,” she told Reuters news agency via a messaging app.
Like Basal, she said medical supplies were running out due to the daily demands of caring for the injured.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said that at least 50 trucks of humanitarian aid from the Jordanian capital, Amman, had arrived in Gaza City, but that they “n “have not reached besieged areas, including Jabalia, Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya.” “.
He said Israeli strikes also continued across Gaza, including in central areas.
Polio vaccinations
Separately, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that on the second day of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, more than 64,000 children had received drops and 51,000 doses of vitamin A.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged Israel to ensure the necessary conditions to complete the work of vaccinating children in Gaza against polio,
“We call for humanitarian pauses to continue to be respected. We call for a ceasefire and peace,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
Rachael Cummings, health specialist at Save the Children, said the situation for children in the coastal enclave is “absolutely dire”.
“People are in survival mode. … People are looking for food, water. There is no adequate sanitation and hygiene practices are decimated,” Cummings told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 42,400 people, mostly women and children, since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.