In the last two days, bombings have been reported in the vicinity of the Khan Younis European Hospital, in the south of Gaza and one of the main ones still operating in the strip, according to the United Nations today, which also confirmed other attacks and sieges on humanitarian facilities in the Palestinian territory.
The European Hospital, with a theoretical capacity for 370 patients, is currently caring for around a thousand people. Some 70,000 internally displaced people also take refuge there and for days it has reported a shortage of supplies of medicines or blood for transfusions, which forces it to carry out operations without anesthesia.
In one of the attacks in its vicinity, Israeli forces shot at an ambulance and wounded two paramedics, the UN report highlighted, recalling that since the beginning of the conflict 286 health workers have been murdered, according to figures from the Ministry of Health. from Gaza.
The general director of Pharmacy of the Gaza Ministry of Health, Ashraf Abu Mahdi, was injured by Israeli snipers when he tried to reach a warehouse to collect medicines to be delivered to hospitals in the Gaza Strip, where the health system has collapsed, the Ministry itself reported. .
"As soon as we arrived at the warehouses, we saw that there were snipers occupying a nearby place and they shot him, wounding him, along with the driver of the health services vehicle and a third person who was also wounded," Health reported in a statement.
According to him, "the occupation forces attacked the ambulance that went to evacuate them as soon as it arrived at the scene," in a dynamic of attacks on health services that Palestinians have denounced since the beginning of the war, to which is added the almost total collapse of the Health system itself, of which Health warned again today.
According to the emergency service of the Palestinian Red Crescent, all hospitals in Gaza City and the north of the Strip are out of service, and medical personnel who remain in them are trying to care for the sick and wounded as best they can, despite the lack of medicines or basic medical supplies.
Health centers in these areas are also under siege by the Army and at risk of being shot at by snipers.
Another health facility in the southern Strip, Al Amal Hospital, and the nearby offices of the Palestinian Red Crescent have been subject to shelling since Friday, the UN report said. Some 14,000 internally displaced people take refuge in that medical center.
The United Nations also indicated that on Friday the Israeli Navy fired shots towards the coast of Rafah, in the extreme south of Gaza, causing damage to facilities of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), although no casualties were reported.
Since the end of the truce on December 1 and the extension of fighting south of the Gaza River (which divides the strip in two in its central part), the UN has seen how its access to areas north of Gaza is progressively limited. Rafah to be able to distribute humanitarian aid.
In the north of the Strip there are also attacks on hospital facilities still in operation such as the Al Awda center in Jabalia, surrounded by Israeli soldiers and tanks for three days and in which in the last 24 hours a death by gunfire was reported. of two health workers.
Tens of thousands of displaced people continue to arrive in Rafah, after the Israeli army for weeks ordered Palestinians to flee from the north to the south of Gaza and now, in the southern half, is urging those same civilians to leave various areas of Khan. Yunis and other localities.
"Snipers and Israeli forces are targeting anyone who tries to move in those areas. Neither rescue teams, ambulances nor humanitarian agencies can do anything because we do not have safe access," a Red Crescent spokesperson told EFE.
This story coincides with the testimony of Mohamed Salha, a Palestinian who is in Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, where there are more than 250 people trapped between medical personnel, the sick, injured and their families.
According to the complaint, the center has been surrounded by Israeli troops for several days "and almost no one can move" even inside, making it especially dangerous to pass in front of the windows, in full view of the snipers.
"Two of our colleagues were killed by sniper fire in recent days," including a nurse, he said.
There is almost no food or water left, after Israel also attacked the water tanks of the hospital, which urgently needs food and drinking water, or help to evacuate, something that has not happened so far, he added.
Furthermore, according to the Ministry of Health, some 9,000 cancer patients in Gaza have been unable to receive treatment for almost two months due to the situation, as well as hemophilia patients, another element that can cause the accelerated death of many civilians.
So far, according to the same source, Israeli forces have "deliberately" attacked 132 health centers, leaving "22 hospitals and 46 health centers out of service," while the Israeli attacks also caused the death of almost 300 health personnel. .
First of all, Health called "to work immediately to provide the medicines and fuel necessary to operate the Al Shifa hospital", the largest in Gaza, which was dismantled and evacuated weeks ago, after an Israeli raid to uncover what it considered such as tunnels and Hamas military infrastructure inside.
In recent days, health personnel have tried to reactivate the health center. According to Health, it represents "the only hope for the needs of the wounded and sick in northern Gaza."
