Israeli air raids knocked out the Kuwaiti hospital and trapped medical staff and patients inside the Indonesian field hospital.
The Gaza Strip’s crumbling health system is under further strain after the Israeli army intensified its bombardments in the Tal as-Sultan area of Rafah and other parts of the enclave, a day after an attack on a camp in Rafah killed 45 Palestinians.
The Indonesian field hospital is the latest medical facility in Rafah to be hit by Monday’s attack, causing damage to the upper floors of the hospital.
Medical staff and patients are reportedly stuck inside the facility, where many Palestinian families are also sheltering.
Earlier on Monday, Kuwait’s Rafah Specialized Hospital was forced to close its doors after an Israeli attack just outside the hospital gates killed two of its medical staff.
Witnesses said the victims were hit by gunfire from an Israeli plane. The hospital was treating most of the 249 injured in the Israeli attack Sunday evening on a camp for displaced people.
The hospital’s director, Dr. Suhaib al-Hams, said the facility was put out of service due to “the Israeli occupation forces’ expansion of their military operation in Rafah and their repeated attacks and deliberate attacks against the hospital and its surroundings.
Dr Mohammed Tahir, an orthopedic surgeon who volunteered to work at the European Gaza Hospital in Rafah, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the closure of Kuwait’s specialist hospital was putting Rafah residents in grave danger.
“What we are experiencing here is unfortunately a multi-pronged attack where not only are people directly attacked, but they are also prevented from receiving essential medical services,” Tahir said.
“The Kuwaiti hospital – it’s the main hospital – has been evacuated and they are in the process of moving to al-Mawasi, where they have a field hospital, which is not quite ready. And meanwhile, quadcopters…restrict the movement of ambulances, so those who are injured cannot even receive help,” he added.
In central Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians receiving treatment at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah are also said to be in imminent danger, as the facility is set to close due to the blocking by Israeli forces of its fuel supply.
Israeli forces have damaged, destroyed or occupied 24 hospitals in the Gaza Strip since October 7, leaving only six partially functional facilities out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals.
Since the start of the war, Israel has blocked vital supplies reaching health facilities in the Gaza Strip.