The World Health Organization (WHO) reported this Sunday that it has lost communication with the staff of Al Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, in northern Gaza, amid repeated attacks on the medical center.
"As horrific reports continue to emerge that the hospital is facing repeated attacks, we assume that our contacts have joined tens of thousands of displaced people who had sought refuge on the hospital grounds and are fleeing the area," the agency said. of the UN in a statement.
Alleged to be a cover for Hamas headquarters, Al Shifa hospital has been "attacked several times in the last 48 hours, leaving several dead and many injured," according to the WHO, which added that the intensive care unit was damaged. by the bombings, while areas of the hospital where displaced people were taking refuge have also been damaged.
In the war that Israel is waging in Gaza to combat Hamas, health centers and ambulances are another target of its attacks. For thousands of Gazans in the north of the strip, hospitals are synonymous with refuge and healing, but in the eyes of the Hebrew army they are a cover for the main commanders of the Islamist group.
The director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has classified this situation as "deeply worrying and terrifying" through his X account (formerly Twitter).
According to the latest reports received by WHO, the hospital was surrounded by tanks and staff reported a lack of clean water and the risk that the last remaining critical functions, including ICUs, ventilators and incubators, would stop working. soon due to lack of fuel, which would immediately endanger the lives of the patients.
WHO again called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering and also called for sustained, orderly, unhindered and safe medical evacuations of seriously injured and sick patients to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing.
Yesterday, the Israeli Army assured that "it is a lie" that there is a siege and attacks by its troops on the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, but that there is fighting with Hamas militiamen in the areas near the medical center.
But medical sources and the Ministry of Health in Gaza, governed by Hamas, assure that both the Al Shifa hospital and the rest of the main health centers in Gaza City and the northern Strip are being surrounded by Israeli troops, in what which they considered "a war against hospitals."
