The World Health Organization in Gaza (Palestinian Red Crescent Society) says a Palestinian hospital was evacuated from the third largest hospital in the country
Northern Gaza has been decimated by four months of bombardment, and continued fighting there between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters has severely hindered deliveries of aid to the estimated 300,000 people still in the area, who the United Nations has warned face starvation.
Israel says that Hamas has used medical centers in Gaza to hide their military activities and that’s why it’s making accusations about multiple hospitals in Gaza. Hamas and health officials deny those charges, and aid groups have called on Israel to respect international laws protecting hospitals from attack.
Fourteen people were evacuated from a United Nations mission at the second-largest hospital in Gaza, the World Health Organization said. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 18 more were evacuated on Monday. The UN said that negotiations were continuing with the Israeli military to allow the patients to be evacuated.
The W.H.O. said that there were 15 health care workers who cared for the remaining patients with no tap water, little food and oxygen and limited medical supplies except a backup generator that provided some vital equipment. The W.H.O.’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Sunday that Nasser was no longer functional.
The Times of Gaza, a Gaza City Faced with Hunger and Desperation after the Israeli-U.N. War of Independence, Revisited
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Israel ordered two neighborhoods of Gaza City to leave on Tuesday due to signs of hunger and desperation in the northern part of the enclave at a time when the focus of the offensive has shifted south.
The W.F.P. had suspended its deliveries for the past three weeks because of safety concerns, and on Sunday the agency tried to restart them, but “crowds of hungry people” surrounded the initial convoy as it was going to Gaza City, and aid workers were forced to fend off people trying to climb onto the trucks, the organization said in a statement.
Another convoy on Monday “faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order,” the statement added, saying that several trucks were looted and a driver was beaten.
Food aid must be delivered to people in dire need but the safety and security must be guaranteed, according to the statement.
The team said that it saw an unprecedented levels of desperation in Gaza and that the U.N. report showed a surge in acute hunger in the northern part of the enclave.
Israel began military offensive in the northern part of Gaza. As the Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza, they asked civilians to go south for their own safety.