The Al-Xifa hospital complex, the largest in Gaza, resembles a trapdoor where “no one can enter or leave”, according to several doctors, given the proximity of the fighting. Witnesses from inside describe the agony of a hospital together with that of between 600 and 1,500 admitted patients, among them between 36 and 45 babies in incubators, depending, again, on the official source. For Hamas, Al-Xifa has become a very valuable asset for its interests.
The version of the Ministry of Health of Gaza is that “the last generator of the hospital stopped working on Saturday”. Hence, the death of three babies and the relocation of the rest in normal rooms.
The World Health Organization asserts that it has lost all contact with the center and a surgeon from Khan Iunis hospital, in the south, in contact with doctors from Al-Xifa, claimed that “the hospital is not working. No one can enter or leave.” The other large hospital in the northern half of the strip, Al-Quds, is no longer operational, according to the Red Crescent.
“My son was injured in one leg and there wasn’t a single hospital where he could be taken to get stitches”, lamented Ahmed Al Kahlont, who chose to head south, under imaginable conditions.
The Government of Israel accuses Hamas of deliberately using the complex for its operations and of having rejected two offers in the last 24 hours to ease the situation. “We offered them, last night, to give them enough fuel for the hospital, the incubators and all that. We do not fight against patients. They rejected it,” said Prime Minister Netanyahu in an interview with NBC.
The proposal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to evacuate part of the admitted, with all the babies, was discarded as unfeasible by the center and some of the organizations that finance it, such as the British Medical Aid for Palestinians, the whose president said that “the transfer of critically ill newborns is a very complex and technical process”.
With this scenario and taking into account that Al-Xifa is fueling political support for Hamas – yesterday the Turkish President Erdogan added to Hizbullah’s thesis that it is now appropriate to direct the pressure to Washington -, the terrorist organization, according to the ‘label of the US and the EU, announced the suspension of negotiations on the release of some of the 240 hostages it is holding.
The head of the Mossad himself passed through Qatar on Friday, with his CIA counterpart, to negotiate the case. Israel criticizes the International Red Cross and United Nations agencies for their lack of pressure on Hamas to allow them humanitarian access to the abductees, including children and the elderly.
The good news on Sunday was the resumption after two days of the flow of wounded Palestinians and citizens with dual nationality through the Rafah crossing in Egypt. Seven injured and about 500 citizens. At the moment, no Spanish.
