The Gaza Health Ministry raises the death toll in the Strip to more than 16,000

More of 16,000 people Have they died in the Gaza Strip in the 43 days of war between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which had not updated the figures for several days due to the incessant Israeli attacks and the collapse of the main hospitals. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza assured Efe that “the real number is much higher” and stressed that these figures are “estimates.”

In this sense, he insisted that at least 3,500 people still remain under the rubble of the buildings and that the attacks do not stop. Of the 24 hospitals with capacity for inpatients in the north of the Strip, only one, Al Ahli in Gaza City, is currently operating under minimums and admitting patients. The rest have been collapsing one by one, after running out of electricity, fuel, internet, drinking water, food and medicine.

These figures are known shortly after the Ministry denounced that the Israeli Army gave the doctors, patients and displaced people who remain in the Palestinian hospital of Al Shifa, located in the north of Gaza, one hour to leave it. A time that has already passed.

“State of panic and fear”

The head of the Orthopedics Department, Adnan al Bursh, quoted by the Ministry, assured that the order has created a “severe state of panic and fear” inside the hospital center and stressed that the doctors will not leave the hospital without the patients. On the other hand, the general director of Health of Gaza, Munir al Bursh denounced that Israeli troops have taken bodies from the hospital morgue, as well as from the cemetery excavated within the perimeter of the medical facilities.

He Israeli army Maintains that Al Shifa hides “a command center, weapons and technological assets” of Hamas and is therefore a military objective. In recent days, the hospital center has been the target of a siege by Israeli forces, who claim to have found weapons inside.

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Israel declared war on Hamas October 7 after a massive attack by the Islamist group that included the launching of thousands of rockets and the infiltration into Israeli territory of some 3,000 militiamen who massacred some 1,200 people and kidnapped another 240.

Since then, Israel’s air, naval and ground forces have relentlessly attacked the Gaza Strip, which in addition to the deaths and injuries has caused the displacement of 1.7 million Gazans, more than two-thirds of the total population.

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