Impossible to leave, difficult to survive. The situation around Gaza’s largest hospital continued to deteriorate early Wednesday (local time). The IDF claimed to be carrying out a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas” in al-Chifa hospital.
What there is to know
The Israeli army entered Gaza’s largest hospital, after targeting it in the days before.
The humanitarian situation is so catastrophic that the Palestinian dead are buried in mass graves.
The Israeli army took control of the parliament in Gaza.
The operation would only target a “certain part of the al-Chifa hospital” and would not aim “to harm patients”, according to what spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on the social network The Israeli army would have on site “medical teams and Arabic-speaking people who have been trained specifically for this sensitive and complex environment with the aim of ensuring that no harm is caused to the civilians used by Hamas as human shields”, a- she asserted.
The Jewish state suspects the hospital of housing strategic Hamas infrastructure, particularly in underground networks.
John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, also accused Hamas of using “a command center from al-Chifa hospital to support its military operations and hold hostages” in its vast network of tunnels, which he described as a “war crime”. Accusations that the Islamic movement denies.
Israel had until now been careful not to enter the hospital due to the presence of thousands of Palestinians, who were crowded into the immense complex in disastrous conditions.
However, in a series of assertions that could not be independently verified, the Hamas Ministry of Health asserted that “dozens of soldiers [israéliens] » had entered the emergency department and that tanks had entered the complex.
According to the testimony of a man trapped in the hospital collected by the BBC, “the soldiers threw a smoke bomb which caused people to suffocate”.
On the eve of this assault, Tuesday, the al-Chifa hospital had to bury nearly 200 dead in a “common grave”, according to its general director, Mohammed Abou Salmiya. “There are bodies littering the aisles of the hospital complex, and the refrigerated rooms of the morgues are no longer supplied” with electricity, said Mr. Salmiya, specifying that among the bodies were those of seven premature babies who died due to lack of electricity. keep them alive.
A journalist working with AFP inside the hospital said the smell of decomposing bodies was suffocating.
Evacuation, an “impossible task”
Transformed into human shields, civilians are the first victims of the situation prevailing at al-Chifa hospital. Even before the IDF launched its offensive, Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), estimated that the evacuation of the buildings risked proving to be an “impossible task”.
Mme Harris also recalled that the sick could not go to hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip, despite calls to do so by Israel, because they were fewer in number and “completely overwhelmed”.
Bref, c’est un autre désastre humanitaire qui se prépare, souligne Nadja Pollaert, directrice générale de Médecins du monde au Canada.
« L’hôpital est complètement à plat. Il n’y a plus rien qui fonctionne. Une des choses qu’ils n’ont plus, c’est des banques de sang. Vous avez tous les nouveaux blessés qui arrivent. Comment donner des soins sans électricité, sans le carburant pour faire marcher les machines ? […] The other issue is all the medical equipment we need to carry out the operations. There is nothing left. What our colleagues there report to us is that we operate without anesthesia. »
“It is not up to an NGO to begin to comment on how to manage Hamas and the tunnels. But what concerns us is that there is really an increasing trend, where the targets are hospitals, schools, caregivers, adds M.me Pollaert. Indeed, a State has the right to defend itself, but the question that must be asked is: are the consequences of this defense proportional to the humanitarian disaster? The answer is no. »
Less resistance than expected
The Israeli army announced on Tuesday that it had taken over Hamas government buildings in Gaza City, including the parliament and government and police buildings.
This symbolic capture comes while 240 people are still in the hands of the Palestinian Islamist group. Relatives of the hostages began a five-day march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Tuesday. This 63 kilometer journey should take them to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand from him “the immediate release of all the hostages”, explained the Forum of Families of Hostages and the Disappeared.
Thousands of people from across the United States gathered in Washington on Tuesday, also to demand the release of the hostages, while denouncing the anti-Semitism observed since the start of the crisis.
PHOTO LEIGH VOGEL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Thousands of people gathered in Washington on Tuesday to demand the release of the hostages.
In its most recent report, the Hamas government announced Tuesday that 11,320 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip. Among these deaths are 4,650 children and 3,145 women.
Israel has promised to eradicate Hamas, in response to the terrible massacres of October 7 which left around 1,200 dead on the Israeli side. A probably unachievable objective, according to Benjamin Toubol, doctoral student in political science at Laval University, even if Israeli progress is greater than expected.
“By its nature, a group like Hamas cannot be eradicated,” believes Mr. Toubol. It is a hydra with many heads. On the other hand, I believe that Israel expected more resistance in Gaza. It turns out that here we see the difference between Hamas’ propaganda elements and the real situation on the ground. He [le Hamas] is less present and less effective in North Gaza than it suggested…”
With Bruno Marcotte, The PressAgence France-Presse, the Associated Press and The Guardian
Trudeau raises his voice, Netanyahu responds
Just a few hours before the IDF entered the al-Chifa hospital, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his voice against the Jewish state, calling on it to show “the greatest restraint” in the band of Gaza. “The deaths of women, children and babies must stop,” he said on the sidelines of an announcement in British Columbia. He also condemned Hamas’ use of “Palestinians as human shields” and urged the Islamic movement to release all its hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to his Canadian counterpart, affirming on X that “it was not Israel which deliberately targeted civilians”, but rather Hamas, recalling the devastation of the surprise attack of October 7.