7,000 Refugees, Patients And Medical Officers At Al-Shifa Gaza Hospital Struggle To Live Amid Lack Of Water-Food

PHOTO ILUSTRATION/MAY WHO Al Shifa hospital/PHOTO via news.un.org

JAKARTA - More than 7,000 refugees, patients, and medics inside the Al-Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza are struggling to stay alive amid lack of water and food due to a blockade by the Israeli military. Based on a statement released on Telegram, Gaza's media office highlighted the critical situation by reporting the absence of food, water, or milk for infants at the hospital. "We may have lost a number of malnourished children in hospitals due to power outages, so they cannot be treated in incubators," Gaza's media office said as quoted by Anadolu, Friday, November 17. The office later reported that Israeli forces had destroyed all vehicles in the Al-Shifa Hospital complex, and declined to allow medics or patients to leave Gaza's largest health facility. In addition to conducting search and inspection operations inside Al-Shifa Hospital, Israeli soldiers also transferred the bodies of the martyrs to an unknown location. "The occupation forces have turned the facility into a military barracks," the Gaza media office reported. Gaza's media office calls for international pressure to free the Al-Shifa complex from the Israeli army, remove their soldiers and tanks, and reject Israel's narrative of "arms hidden inside the hospital". "We call for immediate international intervention to save those in the compound," Gaza's media office said. Gaza's media office confirmed that Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza are humanitarian agencies, which will not be allowed to be used as military operations. On Thursday evening, Israeli soldiers surrounded another hospital, namely Al-Ahli Baptist, the last health facility operating in Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

For days, the Israeli military attacked and blockaded all hospitals in northern Gaza on the grounds of a "military headquarters", although the claim has repeatedly been denied by Hamas and Palestinian officials in Gaza.