Israel and Hamas at war, day 182 | Gaza’s largest hospital is an ’empty shell’ strewn with corpses

Gaza’s largest hospital has been reduced to an “empty shell” strewn with human remains by the latest Israeli operation against it, the World Health Organization (WHO) denounced on Saturday.

Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza City’s al-Chifa hospital on Monday after a two-week operation, during which they said they battled Palestinian fighters inside what was the country’s largest compound. medical in the Palestinian territory.

A WHO-led mission was able to access the hospital on Friday, the UN agency said.

“Al-Chifa, once the backbone of Gaza’s health system, is now an empty shell with graves,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

In a statement, the WHO said there were no more patients in the hospital, where “numerous shallow graves” were dug outside the emergency department and administrative and surgical buildings.

“In the same area, many corpses were partially buried with their limbs visible,” notes the WHO, whose staff reported “a pungent odor of decomposing bodies.”

The mission, in cooperation with other UN agencies and the hospital’s interim director, found that “the scale of the devastation has rendered the facility completely unusable.”

“Most buildings […] are largely destroyed and the majority of the equipment damaged or reduced to ashes,” said Mr. Tedros.

The WHO cites the testimony of the interim director of the hospital, according to which the patients were “kept in appalling conditions” during the Israeli operation.

“They suffered from a cruel lack of food, water, health care, hygiene”, moved “from one building to another at gunpoint”. At least 20 patients are believed to have died.

Mr. Tedros lamented that efforts, notably by the WHO, to restore basic services after Israel’s first raid on the hospital last year “are now lost”, depriving the population of “access to vital health care services.”

Only 10 out of 36 of Gaza’s main hospitals are still partially functional, according to the WHO.

Negotiators expected in Cairo on Sunday

American, Qatari, Israeli and Hamas negotiators are expected in Cairo on Sunday for yet another attempt to reach a truce associated with the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip ravaged by a devastating war which will enter its 7^e month.

Triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented bloody attack by Hamas in Israel, the Israeli military offensive knows no respite, killing 33,137 people, most of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health, and causing a disaster. humanitarian with the majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants threatened with famine, according to the UN.

According to American media, CIA chief Bill Burns is traveling to Cairo this weekend to meet with Israeli Mossad chief David Barnea, as well as Egyptian and Qatari officials. The White House confirmed talks.

Israeli and Hamas delegations will visit the Egyptian capital on Sunday, alongside Mr. Burns and the Qatari foreign minister, pro-government Egyptian media Al-Qahera News reported on Saturday.

US President Joe Biden called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to reach an agreement on the hostages” kidnapped during the Hamas attack. He also asked Qatar and Egypt, the mediators with the United States, “to get Hamas to commit to accepting an agreement,” according to a senior American official on condition of anonymity.

Hamas, which announced the departure of a delegation to Cairo on Sunday, affirmed on Saturday that it would not give up its demands for a truce, including “a complete ceasefire”, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a return of the displaced, and a “serious” agreement to exchange hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Body of a hostage recovered

After a one-week truce at the end of November which allowed the release of around a hundred hostages in exchange for Palestinian detainees, several rounds of indirect negotiations between the protagonists, via mediators, took place for a new ceasefire. fire. In vain.

Israel and Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, blame each other for the blockade.

The Israeli government says it is determined to continue the war until the “elimination of Hamas”, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel in particular.

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack in southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people in Israel, the majority civilians killed the same day, according to an AFP count carried out in based on official Israeli figures.

More than 250 people were kidnapped during the attack and taken to Gaza where 129 remain detained, including 34 who died, according to Israeli officials.

On Saturday, the army announced that it had recovered in Khan Younes (south) the body of Elad Katzir, kidnapped from kibbutz Nir Oz. He was, according to her, “killed in captivity” by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed movement which participated in the October 7 attack.

For his sister, Carmit Palty Katzir, freeing him alive “could have been possible if an agreement on the hostages had been reached in time. Our leaders are cowards and driven by political considerations.”

“Six months in hell”

The prime minister faces increased pressure in Israel. On Saturday evening, a large anti-Netanyahu mobilization took place in Tel Aviv and other Israeli localities to demand his resignation, early legislative elections and an agreement on the hostages, who had been in “hell for six months”, could – we read on a sign.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Saturday that the army was fighting in a “difficult war” to bring back all the hostages. He added that a six-month commemoration of the Hamas attack would take place on Sunday at 6:29 a.m. local time (11:29 p.m. Eastern Time).

In addition, the leader of the Israeli opposition, Yaïr Lapid, leaves on Saturday for Washington where he will meet senior American leaders, against a backdrop of tensions over Mr. Netanyuahu’s conduct of the war.

“Everything was destroyed”

In retaliation for the Hamas attack, the Israeli army launched a campaign of intense aerial bombardments on the Gaza Strip, followed by a ground offensive which allowed it to advance into the devastated territory that it has been besieging since the 9 october.

According to a latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, 46 additional deaths have been recorded in the last 24 hours in Gaza.

In Rafah (south), there are crowds of nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, the majority displaced, who fear, in addition to the bombings, a ground offensive wanted by Mr. Netanyahu for whom this city is the “last great bastion of Hamas.” An offensive opposed by its American ally.

“Everything was destroyed,” laments Siham Achour, 50, who found refuge in a tent in Rafah after fleeing Khan Younès.

“Great impunity”

As the war enters its 7th on Sunday^e month, the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office, Martin Griffiths, denounced the fact that, despite “global outrage”, “so little has been done to put an end to it, leaving room for such great impunity “.

The Netanyahu government is under strong international pressure to let more aid into Gaza, especially after the death on Monday of World Center Kitchen (WCK) humanitarian workers—one Palestinian and six foreigners—killed in the Palestinian territory by a drone Israeli against their vehicle.

Strictly controlled by Israel, the aid, mainly coming from Egypt, enters in dribs and drabs via the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israeli territory and southern Gaza.

On Friday, Israel announced plans to “temporarily” open other crossing points to deliver aid, as well as an “increase in aid through Kerem Shalom.”

Measures deemed “insufficient” by the UN.

The war has repercussions on the border between Lebanon and Israel, where the Israeli army exchanges daily fire with Lebanese Hezbollah. On Saturday evening, a missile struck an Israeli drone in Lebanese airspace, which fell to the ground, according to the army.