(Added: Clinic has been out of operation since the weekend.)
TEL AVIV/GAZA (dpa-AFX) – As the Israeli army continues its attacks in the fight against the Islamist Hamas in Gaza, the situation in the hospitals there is becoming more and more dramatic. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, seven newborns died after oxygen machines were switched off in the Shifa hospital in the north of the sealed-off coastal strip. The lack of fuel led to the deaths of 34 patients, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Monday. The information could not be independently verified.
The largest clinic in the Gaza Strip has been out of operation since the weekend, according to a doctor and the Health Ministry, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas. Doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta said on Saturday that there was no more electricity and rockets had also hit the site.
On Monday morning, the UN emergency relief office OCHA reported twelve deaths since Saturday – including two babies born prematurely. The UN office cited the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry in Ramallah. Accordingly, 36 other premature babies who are dependent on incubators and therefore on electricity and several dialysis patients were in acute danger of death due to the power outage.
OCHA: Devastating conditions
According to the UN, the last generator failed on Saturday due to a lack of fuel. Around 100 corpses were rotting in the hospital area and could not be buried, OCHA reported, citing the Ministry of Health in Ramallah. According to the information, the hygienic conditions are devastating. Medical waste was accumulating in the wards and could not be disposed of properly, it was said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than 2,000 people in the Shifa clinic, including probably more than 600 patients and around 1,500 displaced people.
On October 7, terrorists from Hamas and other groups killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped around 240 hostages to the Gaza Strip in massacres and attacks in the Israeli border area. Israel then imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip. The army is also carrying out massive air strikes and deploying ground troops into the densely populated coastal strip.
Since ground operations began, the military says it has carried out a total of 4,300 attacks. Among other things, hundreds of firing positions for anti-tank missiles and around 300 tunnel shafts were hit. Around 3,000 targets were “terrorist infrastructure”.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has now risen to more than 11,000, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. The figures cannot currently be independently verified, but the United Nations and other observers point out that the authority’s figures are… have proven to be credible in the past.
UN: Staff building attacked in Gaza Strip
According to the UN, 101 employees of the Palestinian relief organization UNRWA were also killed. This is the highest number of UN aid workers killed in such a short period of time in the history of the United Nations, said Tatyana Valovaya, the director general of the UN Geneva office.
The United Nations also accused Israel of attacking a building housing UN staff. The attack took place near the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. This is another indication that no place in Gaza is safe, said UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini. The location coordinates of the building were sent to all parties to the conflict twice, including on Friday. An Israeli army spokesman said on Monday that the army had attacked a target next to a UN building the previous day “on the basis of operational needs.”
France’s foreign minister calls for a long-term pause in fighting
Israel’s army, meanwhile, once again announced a window of several hours during which civilians should be allowed to flee from the north to the south on Monday. In the south there was also a so-called humanitarian pause in fighting for four hours. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna criticized the situation in the Gaza Strip as untenable and called for a long-term pause in fighting. “There are too many civilian casualties. Things cannot continue like this,” said Colonna at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Given the dramatic situation in the Gaza Strip, other politicians also expressed deep concern. The European Union condemned the use of hospitals and civilians as shields by the Islamist Hamas. “Civilians must be allowed to leave the combat zone,” said a statement from EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on behalf of the EU. The fighting had a serious impact on hospitals and took “a terrible toll on civilians and medical staff.”
The EU also called on Israel to exercise “the greatest possible restraint” to ensure the protection of the civilian population. At the same time, she emphasized to the EU Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law.
Asselborn: “History will not forgive us”
This doesn’t go far enough for outgoing Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jan Asselborn – he called for clear language from the EU towards Israel. “There are babies here who are suffocating because there is no more oxygen. There are people who are in the intensive care unit and have no chance,” he said. The endless suffering that happened in Israel must not be repeated in Gaza. “History will not forgive us for this,” he warned.
Baerbock is gloomy about the situation in the Middle East
After recent crisis talks in the Near and Middle East, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed herself very pessimistically about the Gaza war and the prospects for the future. “The situation in the region is torn apart. The rifts seem to be getting deeper,” said the Green politician on the sidelines of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting. “The bitter reality is that we are only making progress in the smallest of steps.” EU chief diplomat Borrell announced that he would make renewed efforts to ease the situation and travel to Israel and other states in the region this week.
More than 290 Germans were able to leave the Gaza Strip
More than 290 German citizens and family members from the Gaza Strip have now crossed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. A “very low three-digit number” is still registered in Gaza on the federal government’s crisis preparedness list, said a spokesman for the Foreign Office in Berlin./ro/DP/men