Palestinians flee main Gaza hospital
Medics forced to evacuate as nearby fighting shatters healthcare system
DEIR AL-BALAH: Medics, patients and displaced people are fleeing from the main hospital in central Gaza as the fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian groups draws closer, witnesses said. Losing the facility would be another major blow to a health system shattered by three months of war.
Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups withdrew from Al-aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-balah in recent days, saying it is too dangerous.
That spread panic among people sheltering there, causing many to join the hundreds of thousands who have fled to the south of the besieged territory.
Israel says it has largely wrapped up major operations in northern Gaza and is now focusing on the central region and the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Israeli officials have said the fighting will continue for many more months as the army seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken during the group’s Oct 7 attack that triggered the current war.
The offensive has already killed over 22,000 Palestinians, devastated vast swaths of the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly 85% of its population of 2.3 million and left a quarter of its residents facing starvation.
It has also threatened to ignite a wider war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups allied with Hamas.
Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter in Gaza’s hospitals, which are also struggling to treat dozens of people wounded each day in Israeli strikes. Only 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, according to the UN humanitarian office.
Omar al-darawi, an employee at Al-aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said the facility has been struck multiple times in recent days.
He said thousands of people left after the aid groups pulled out, and that patients have been concentrated on one floor so remaining doctors can tend to them more easily.
“We have large numbers of wounded who can’t move” he said. “They need special care, which is unavailable.”
More dead and wounded arrive each day as Israeli forces advance in central Gaza following heavy airstrikes.
The Health Ministry said early yesterday that 73 bodies and 99 wounded were brought to the hospital in just the last 24 hours.
World Health Organisation staff who visited Sunday saw “sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on bloodstreaked floors and in chaotic corridors,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the UN agency, said. “The bloodbath in Gaza must end.” The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces cut off from the rest of the territory in late October.
Entire neighbourhoods have been demolished, and hundreds of thousands of people have fled, while those who remain face severe shortages of food and water.
The WHO said on Sunday it has not been able to deliver supplies to northern Gaza in 12 days. —