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Israel-Hamas War Live Updates: Israel Consolidates Control of Gaza City
Gaza’s main hospital is no longer functioning, according to the World Health Organization, which warned of a “dire and perilous” situation for hundreds of patients and displaced people trapped inside as Israeli troops battle Hamas fighters nearby.
Dozens of corpses are decomposing at the hospital, Al-Shifa, because there is no way to preserve or remove them, a head nurse and the Gazan Health Ministry said.
The hospital and other medical centers in Gaza City had been struggling for weeks to maintain operations as supplies of fuel and medicine dwindled. The health ministry of Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, said on Monday that Israeli military vehicles had advanced to the gates of the hospital complex.
Patients at Al-Shifa have been dying because of a lack of power, according to doctors and Gazan health officials. Jihan Miqdad, a head nurse in the emergency room at Al-Shifa, said in a phone interview on Monday that patients who were on life support in the intensive care unit were dying because there was no oxygen.
“The situation here is catastrophic in every sense of the word,” she said.
The World Health Organization said on Sunday that three days “without electricity, without water and with very poor internet” had severely hurt Al-Shifa’s ability to provide care. It cited constant gunfire and bombings in the area, and said patient deaths had increased significantly.
“Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore,” the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement.
The health ministry in Gaza said that at least six wounded patients had died at the hospital on Saturday as a result of a power outage, including two premature babies. Without fuel to run generators, the hospital has been plunged into darkness, the ministry and the hospital’s administrator said.
Israeli security officials say that Hamas has built a vast command complex under the hospital, making it a legitimate military target. Hamas has denied the allegations, as has Al-Shifa’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, who has called them “untrue.”
A spokesman for the Gazan health ministry, Dr. Medhat Abbas, said in a phone interview that more than 100 bodies were lying in the hospital’s front yard, another 50 were inside and around 60 were in the morgue.
The corpses are starting to decompose, “which turns the hospital into a dangerous place from an epidemiological standpoint,” he said, and the smell had begun to spread everywhere.
Staff members and some 8,000 displaced people sheltering at the hospital are suffering from thirst and hunger, Dr. Abbas said. Medical teams are surviving on biscuits and dates, he added.
In recent days, Israeli soldiers have surrounded at least one other hospital in northern Gaza, stepping up their push to empty the facilities, according to Israeli military officials, as fighting around them intensifies.
At Al-Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children, the only medical center with a pediatric cancer ward in the strip, Dr. Bakr Gaoud, the head of the hospital, said Israeli forces moved in late last week, damaging the ground floor and destroying several vehicles before providing maps that showed a safe evacuation route, which patients and staff soon used.
A second hospital, Al-Nasr, was similarly emptied out by Israel on Friday, and the health ministry reported strikes against other hospitals over the weekend.
At Al-Quds Hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Monday that “heavy gunfire” was continuing nearby and that “shelling and violent explosions were heard in the area.” A convoy of vehicles that had been traveling from the south to Al-Quds in an effort to evacuate patients and medical staff could not reach the hospital because of the bombardment, the agency said.
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.
