The al-Chifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip targeted by Israeli raids, has become a “death zone”, denounced on Saturday the World Health Organization (WHO) which requested its evacuation, at moment when the Israeli army expands its operations in the besieged territory.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, claimed that Israeli strikes on the UN-run Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the territory had left more than 80 dead, including at minus 50 in a school that houses displaced people.
Images broadcast on social networks authenticated by AFP show bodies, some covered in blood, on the floors of the al-Fakhoura school in the Jabaliya camp, targeted by a strike according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, where mattresses had been installed under tables.
Asked about this strike, the Israeli army told AFP that it had “received reports of an incident in the Jabaliya region”, adding that it was “being examined”.
The second strike, which hit a house in Jabaliya, killed 32 members of the same family, including 19 children, according to the Hamas health ministry.
“We are receiving appalling images of numerous deaths and injuries once again in a UNRWA school which sheltered thousands of displaced people,” wrote on X the head of this UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, demanding that “these attacks” stop.
Expansion of operations
As the war enters its 44e day Sunday, the Israeli army “continues to expand its operations in new areas of the Gaza Strip”, she announced, indicating that it had carried out operations on Saturday in the areas of Jabaliya and Zaytoun, in the north of territory.
Hundreds of people who had taken refuge in al-Chifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, left the premises on Saturday after being ordered to do so by the Israeli army, according to the director of the establishment and a journalist of the AFP on site. The army denied having ordered the evacuation, only asserting that it had “responded to a request” from the director of al-Chifa hospital.
Blocked for twenty days in al-Chifa, Rami Charab arrived in the center of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, after hours of walking.
“At eight in the morning,” the 24-year-old recalls, the loudspeakers rang out. An Israeli soldier ordered the evacuation of the hospital “within an hour or else we will be bombed”.
On the Salaheddine road crossing the territory from north to south, which Rami Charab took when leaving, a cohort of Palestinians advances slowly. A man carries his disabled daughter in his arms.
The organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced that a family member of one of its employees was killed and another injured during the attack on a convoy that was evacuating 137 people from al-Chifa. MSF did not specify the origin of the shots.
“Death Zone”
Al-Chifa hospital has become a “death zone” where the situation is “desperate” due to the lack of water, electricity, medicine, food and medical equipment, the Organization said on Saturday evening World Health Organization (WHO), which carried out a one-hour mission there on Saturday.
According to the WHO, the huge hospital complex still housed 25 caregivers and 291 patients on Saturday, including 32 babies in critical condition, 22 patients on dialysis and two in intensive care. Many of the injured suffer serious infections due to a lack of antibiotics and poor hygiene conditions, the organization reported.
“WHO and partners are urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of remaining patients, staff and their families” to other hospitals in Gaza, WHO added.
According to the Israeli army, which launched a raid on the hospital on Wednesday morning, the latter houses a Hamas hideout installed in particular in a network of tunnels. The Islamist movement denies it.
The war was sparked on October 7 by a Hamas attack on Israeli soil in which 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli authorities, the vast majority civilians.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to “annihilate” the Islamist movement, which took power in Gaza in 2007. The army relentlessly shelled the small Palestinian territory and launched a ground operation on October 27.
On Saturday evening, the Hamas government announced that 12,300 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli bombings since October 7, including more than 5,000 children.
The fighting between Israel and Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, is concentrated in the north of the territory, particularly in the city of Gaza, transformed into a field of ruins.
More than two-thirds of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war, according to the UN. Most have fled south with the minimum they have and are trying to survive in the cold that sets in.
But strikes also take place in the south of the Gaza Strip. During the night from Friday to Saturday, a bombing left 26 dead in the town of Khan Younès, according to the director of the Nasser hospital.
According to UNRWA, 70% of the population does not have access to drinking water in the south of the territory, where sewage has begun to flow into the streets as treatment plants have stopped operating due to lack of fuel. .
March for the hostages
Since October 9, the territory has been under a “complete siege” by Israel, which has cut off deliveries of food, water, electricity and medicine.
In Israel, relatives of some 240 people kidnapped on the day of the Hamas attack arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday after several days of walking to maintain pressure on their government and demand the release of the hostages.
“Take them home now. All”, proclaimed in the middle of a sea of Israeli flags the demonstrators who left Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
In a column published by the Washington PostUS President Joe Biden on Saturday called for a future reunification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under a “revitalized Palestinian Authority”, and threatened to ban visas to the United States from “extremist” settlers who attack civilians. in the West Bank.
“Extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank must end and those who commit this violence must be held accountable,” he wrote.