Israel and Hamas, day 43 | WHO calls for evacuation of al-Chifa hospital which has become a “death zone”

(Jerusalem) The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had carried out a mission on Saturday to the al-Chifa hospital in Gaza, occupied by the Israeli army, and was working on an evacuation plan for the establishment which she described as a “death zone”.

According to the WHO, whose experts spent an hour inside the immense hospital complex, it still housed 25 caregivers and 291 patients on Saturday, including 32 babies in critical condition, 22 patients on dialysis and two in intensive care.

Mission members described the hospital as a “death zone” where the situation is “desperate,” the WHO reported in a statement.

“WHO and partners are urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of remaining patients, staff and their families,” the organization added.

“The team saw a hospital that was no longer able to function: no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, medical supplies exhausted,” wrote for his part on WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“Given this deplorable situation and the condition of many patients, including babies, healthcare staff have requested help to evacuate patients who can no longer receive vital care on site,” he said. he adds.

In its statement, the WHO reports that the vast majority of patients still in hospital suffer from complex fractures and amputations, burns, chest and abdominal trauma, and that 29 patients suffer from serious spinal injuries. and are unable to move without medical assistance. Many injured people also suffer from severe infections, due to the lack of antibiotics and poor hygiene conditions.

The WHO announced that several missions will be organized in the coming days to urgently evacuate remaining patients to the Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital in Gaza, even though the latter are “already operating beyond their capacity.”

According to the Israeli army, which launched a raid on al-Chifa hospital on Wednesday morning, the latter houses a Hamas hideout installed in particular in a network of tunnels. The Islamist movement denies it.

Hundreds of people have also already evacuated the largest hospital in Gaza, on 43^e day of conflict, after having received the order from the Israeli army, according to the director of the establishment and an AFP journalist 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.

Israeli strikes on refugee camp

In the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, the first strike hit the al-Fakhoura school, which houses displaced people, at dawn, killing at least 50 people, a local official told AFP. head of the Hamas Ministry of Health.

Images broadcast on social networks authenticated by AFP show bodies, some covered in blood, on the floors of the building where mattresses had been installed under school tables.

Asked about this strike, the Israeli army told AFP that it had “received reports of an incident in the Jabaliya region”, adding that this “incident was being examined”.

The second strike, which hit a house in the Jabaliya camp, killed 32 members of the same family, including 19 children, the ministry said.

“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 (ex-Twitter) the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, demanding that “these attacks” stop.

Egypt called the bombing of the UN-run school a “war crime” and a “deliberate insult to the United Nations.”

During a telephone interview with Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz estimated that “humanitarian ceasefires could contribute to a substantial improvement in the assistance provided to the populations”, according to the chancellery. At the same time, he pledged “that Germany will stand unwaveringly on the side of Israel”.

“Greatest Crime”

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, besieged 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 and 3,300 women.

In the morning on Saturday, hundreds of patients accompanied by medical personnel and displaced people who had found refuge in the immense complex of the al-Chifa hospital, west of Gaza city, left on foot, indicated an AFP journalist on site.

The hospital had no electricity, water or food for several days.

After being blocked for 20 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.

Six doctors, however, remain at al-Chifa hospital to care for 120 patients and premature babies who cannot be transferred, said one of them, Dr.^r Ahmed el-Mokhallalati on X.

Osama Hamdane, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, on Saturday called the raid “the greatest crime”.

120,000 liters of fuel

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. The army accuses Hamas of using hospitals as bases and of using sick people as “human shields”.

Since October 9, the territory has been under a “complete siege” by Israel, which has cut off deliveries of food, water, electricity and medicine.

Under pressure in particular from Washington, Israel authorized the daily entry of tank trucks into the territory on Friday.

After a first delivery on Friday to the Rafah terminal, 120,000 liters entered on Saturday from Egypt, according to the UN, which estimated, on November 15, the daily fuel requirements for “basic humanitarian operations” at 160,000 liters. “.

The United Nations urgently requested fuel to operate generators in hospitals, pump and purify water.

“Bring Them Home”

On Saturday, 674 foreigners, dual nationals and injured Palestinians were evacuated to Egypt, according to the Palestinian authority in charge of the Rafah border crossing, in the south of the territory.

Also in the south, a bombing hit the town of Khan Younès during the night from Friday to Saturday, killing at least 26 people, 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 sewers have started to flow into the streets, treatment plants having stopped working for lack of fuel. .

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 to the South, taking with them the minimum and trying to survive in the cold that sets in.

While negotiations on the release of the hostages are being held via Qatari mediation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses any ceasefire until they have all been released.

Several thousand people arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday, a sea of ​​Israeli flags and portraits of hostages, and are demanding an agreement for their release.

“Take them home now. All,” proclaimed the demonstrators of this march that left Tel Aviv on Tuesday, while the bodies of two female hostages were found this week in Gaza.

At the start of the evening, the Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons announced that “all the families” had been able to meet “the entire war cabinet” on Monday evening.

Furthermore, in the occupied West Bank, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

On Saturday, US President Joe Biden called for a reunification of the West Bank and Gaza Strip under a “revitalized Palestinian Authority”.