JAKARTA - It will take up to twenty years to rebuild the Al Shifa Hospital complex in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, after two weeks of Israeli bombardment that killed more than 200 people, aid groups say.
"The hospital's main surgical building, intensive care unit, and emergency, general surgery, and orthopedic units have all been destroyed," Aseel Baidoun of Medical Assistance Advocacy and Communications for Palestine (Map) told The National News, as quoted April 4.
"This war is a war on hospitals and health services. There have been at least 350 health workers killed and 130 ambulances destroyed. Al Shifa is just the latest hospital to be attacked," said Baidoun, who estimated it would take up to 20 years to completely rebuild the facility.
"Israel deliberately causes human suffering and loss, using hunger as a weapon of war. Currently, major hospitals are no longer functioning, leaving a population of 2.2 million people at risk of genocide and on the verge of starvation," he explained.
Meanwhile, a doctor who left Al Shifa before the siege and returned to the remains of the compound told the organization he had "never witnessed such a level of destruction".
Israeli troops withdrew from the hospital on Monday, after detaining hundreds of Palestinians and leaving behind rubble in the surrounding area.
The army said they had killed 200 Hamas "militants" and arrested 1,400 people, 900 of whom were taken in for questioning.
Social media footage taken around the complex showed smoke billowing from the remains of Gaza's largest hospital. Some of the remains of hundreds of people were strewn throughout the complex.
Hospital staff and authorities denied Hamas fighters were at the site, but Israel claimed they killed hundreds of militants based in the medical complex.
"Every attempt to evacuate patients trapped inside was also rejected by the Israeli military," Baidoun added.
Health workers were detained and questioned in the hospital's outpatient clinic area, he said, while hospital patients had only week-old dressings and maggot-infested wounds.
Separately, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said the attack on Al Shifa had destroyed Gaza's health service system.
"We have been in contact with staff," said WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris.
"The director told us that Al Shifa Hospital is no longer there, it can no longer function in any form as a hospital," he said.
"Destroying Al Shifa means uprooting the health system," he continued.
It is known that Palestinians in northern Gaza have almost no place to seek medical care, with only 200 hospital beds for a population of 350,000.
The chairman of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, William Schomburg, told The National that civilians were again paying the price of violence.
"We are deeply concerned about the impact of the nearly two-week-long military operation carried out by Israeli forces at the Shifa Medical Complex," he said.
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"The largest hospital in the Gaza Strip is now gone and civilians are, once again, the ones paying the price. Gaza's healthcare system has been destroyed and little remains of it," Schomburg continued.
He explained that in every hospital that was directly affected during the war, thousands of patients lost access to medical care. Families, children, and the elderly can no longer receive adequate medical care.
"The ICRC has repeatedly urged all parties to protect civilians and health infrastructure in Gaza," he said.
"This protection is not only a legal obligation but also a moral imperative to preserve human life in these difficult times," stressed Schomburg.
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