According to the Hamas Health Ministry, concern grew Saturday among patients stuck at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes in the Gaza Strip, which was stormed by the Israeli army, whose incessant bombing of the Palestinian territory overnight left dozens dead.
According to a new report (Saturday) from the Ministry of Health, six patients, including a child, have died since Friday as a result of power outages that led to the suspension of oxygen distribution following the attack on Nasser Hospital by Israeli troops by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Gaza in power.
“Newborns are at risk of dying in the coming hours,” added the ministry, which reported that around a hundred people were killed by Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip overnight.
According to him, five doctors caring for 120 patients are still in a Nasser Hospital building without electricity, water, food and oxygen.
Israeli forces “are still detaining many medical workers, patients and internally displaced persons in the maternity building and interrogating them in inhumane conditions,” he added.
On Friday evening, the Israeli army said in its Telegram account that it had discovered mortar shells, grenades and other weapons belonging to Hamas and had captured “dozens” of suspects in the hospital, including “more than 20 terrorists involved in the massacre.” October 7th.
That day, Hamas commandos infiltrating from Gaza killed more than 1,160 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Israel has vowed to retaliate by destroying Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it, along with the United States and the European Union, considers a terrorist organization. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has left 28,775 dead, the vast majority civilians.
Israel says 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died out of the roughly 250 people kidnapped on its territory on October 7.
Unsustainable situation
The Israeli army said on Friday that its troops had found medicine with the names of hostages at Nasser Hospital.
She also said she repaired the hospital's generator, which she denies targeting, and installed a second backup generator.
But doctors described an untenable situation at this hospital, located in a city reduced to rubble and surrounded by fighting, where thousands of displaced people had sought refuge.
Doctors Without Borders said its staff “had to flee, leaving the sick behind.”
“The situation was chaotic and catastrophic,” Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of Doctors Without Borders, told AFP.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nasser Hospital, one of eleven of Gaza's 36 that remained open before the war, is now “barely functioning.”
“More damage to hospitals means more deaths,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said during a press conference in Geneva on Friday, calling for urgent WHO access to the hospital complex.
Meanwhile, the international community is stepping up calls to dissuade Israel from launching an offensive in the crowded city of Rafah, where nearly a million and a half civilians are stranded at the closed border with Egypt.
The European Union, which said Friday it was “very concerned” about the prospect, called on Israel “not to carry out military actions in Rafah that would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”
According to the same sources, eyewitnesses reported explosions on Saturday in the center and east of Rafah, where at least two houses were hit by airstrikes.
Giant camp in Egypt
For his part, American President Joe Biden called for a “temporary ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip. “I hope that the Israelis will not carry out a massive ground invasion in the meantime,” he added.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing Egyptian officials, Egypt is building a walled security zone in the Sinai Peninsula to accommodate Palestinians from Gaza.
This camp is part of the “contingency plans” to accommodate these refugees in the event of an Israeli attack on Rafah and could accommodate “more than 100,000 people,” according to the American daily.
Palestinian leaders, the United Nations and many countries have expressed concern about the catastrophic consequences of such an offensive for the population and denounced the emergence of a new generation of refugees with no hope of return.
But Israel's diplomatic chief reiterated his country's determination to take down Hamas. “If [le chef du Hamas à Gaza, Yahya] “Sinwar and the Hamas murderers think they can find refuge in Rafah, that will not happen,” he assured: “We will provide safe zones for civilians to go to and we will deal with Hamas.”