Al Shifa is in a state of “panic and fear” as Israel offers an hour to flee
Following the Israeli army’s order to evacuate the medical complex within an hour, there was a tremendous deal of terror and dread among patients, medical staff, and families at the Al Shifa hospital, according to a source inside the facility that Al Jazeera quoted on Saturday.
The decision is deemed “impossible” by the hospital staff and the injured and displaced individuals who are seeking shelter at the hospital, which is one of Gaza’s largest medical facilities, according to the news agency. There are no working ambulances at the besieged hospital to take the patients south.
“They have been ordered to transfer those patients, premature babies, and displaced families to the south, but the Israeli army has not given them any other options, transportation, fuel for ambulances, or cars to do so,” Al Jazeera reported.
Satellite images show thousands of Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza City gathered at one of the Israeli army checkpoints. pic.twitter.com/Bxto8EMzAM
— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 18, 2023
Al Jazeera said that Dr. Bashar Murad, the hospital’s director, had repeatedly asked the Israeli army to make arrangements for the transportation of patients, citing a similar circumstance that had occurred at the al-Quds Hospital. It stated that the military forces did not respond, but “to at least provide fuel so that they can use buses to transport the patients.” Eventually, the patients had to be evacuated by foot by hospital staff.
It stated, “In the end, the doctors had to pull those patients out of their hospital beds and force them across the streets to safety.”
Nevertheless, it said that because Al Shifa was treating more than 300 patients, the circumstances there were different. The news agency stated, “Our medical sources indicate that the majority of them are in critical condition and cannot make the trip to the south on beds.”
According to Reuters, Israel has once again warned Palestinians living in the southern city of Khan Younis to go west, “out of the line of fire,” and closer to humanitarian help. This is presumably a preemptive move to attack Hamas in southern Gaza once it has subdued the northern region.
“People are being asked to move. We don’t want to see people caught in the crossfire, Mark Regev, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC on Friday. “I know it’s not easy for many of them.”
This will deepen a terrible humanitarian catastrophe by forcing residents of Khan Younis and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled south during the Israeli assault on Gaza City to migrate once more.
The population of Khan Younis exceeds 400,000.
Following an October 7th incursion into Israel that resulted in 1,200 deaths, according to the latter’s updated numbers, and 240 hostages being brought into the enclave, Israel pledged to destroy the rebel group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip.
Since then, Israel has destroyed much of Gaza City with bombs, murdered over 12,000 people (5,000 of them were children), forced the enclave’s northern half to be evacuated, and left over two-thirds of the 2.3 million Palestinians living there without a place to live.
Many of the displaced people are afraid that their displacement might last forever.
The death toll in Gaza is considered credible by the UN, however, the difficulties in gathering data have resulted in sporadic updates.
Israel released leaflets over Khan Younis’ eastern regions, advising residents to seek shelter and implying that military action was about to take place.
In order to drive Hamas soldiers out of underground tunnels and bunkers, Regev stated that Israeli troops would need to move into the city; however, he added that there is no “enormous infrastructure” of this kind in the less populated areas to the west.
He said, “I’m pretty sure that they won’t have to move again” if they relocated to the west. “We’re asking them to move to an area where hopefully there will be tents and a field hospital.”
Humanitarian relief could be sent “as quickly as possible” because the western regions are closer to Egypt’s Rafah border crossing, he said.
Despite pleas from throughout the world for a ceasefire or at the very least for humanitarian pauses, the war was going into its seventh week with no signs of abating.
“We are ready for a protracted defense that comes from all angles. The spokesman for the Hamas armed wing, Abu Ubaida, stated in a video statement that “the longer the occupation’s forces remain in Gaza, the greater their continuous losses.”
At least five Palestinians were killed and two injured in an Israeli hit on a building in the Balata refugee camp in the center city of Nablus, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service, which reported the incident early on Saturday. This violence broke out in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military did not immediately provide a statement.
Israel appeared to give in to international pressure on Friday, agreeing to allow fuel trucks into Gaza and promising “no limitation” on goods requested by the UN, amid worries that the closure will result in sickness and malnutrition.
At Washington’s request, Israel said it would permit two truckloads of fuel each day to help the UN satisfy basic needs and mentioned intentions to expand supplies more widely.
“We will expand the capability of the aid convoys and vehicles for as long as it is required,” Colonel Elad Goren, of COGAT, the defense ministry organization that handles administrative matters with the Palestinians, stated at a briefing.
Even though Israel has previously stated that it would accept food, the comments seemed to indicate a change in stance following UN agencies’ alarm over the fast worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, which included a severe warning from the World Food Programme about the “immediate possibility of starvation”.
The White House stated that it was “glad” that Israel had consented to the fuel deliveries and that they ought to “continue on a regular basis and in larger quantities” in a post on X, the platform that formerly operated as Twitter.
Israel declared that after two days of searching inside Al Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, its soldiers had discovered an underground structure known as a Hamas tunnel shaft and a car packed with weapons.
But there have been many doubts about the veracity of the Israeli military’s disclosed information.
The facility has been the main target of Israel’s ground invasion, and the growing humanitarian disaster has alarmed nations worldwide.
The army published a video purportedly displaying a tunnel entry in an exterior section of the hospital, covered in sand, wood and concrete debris. The place looked like it had been dug out. There was a bulldozer in the distance.
Last night in northern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/pR0bA3JPvp
— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 18, 2023
A premature baby died at Al Shifa Hospital on Friday, the fourth baby to die there in the days following Israeli forces’ highly contentious raids on it. Hamas also announced the death of a captive from Israel, an 85-year-old who it claimed died of a panic attack during an air strike. Israel has long maintained that the hospital sat above a vast underground bunker housing a Hamas command headquarters, a claim that hospital staff disputes and that Israel’s findings there have so far established as lacking any evidence of such a thing.
Israel has insisted for a long time that the hospital was situated above a sizable subterranean bunker that served as the Hamas command center. The hospital staff disputes this, saying that no such thing has been proven by Israeli research to date.
Hamas disputes that hospitals are used for military operations. It claims that while some captives have received care at hospitals, they have not been detained there.
The fourth infant to pass away at Al Shifa in the days following the highly contentious raids by Israeli commandos on the facility was a preterm baby who passed away on Friday, according to medical officials.
Additionally, Hamas declared the death of an 85-year-old Israeli captive, claiming that the man suffered a panic attack after an airstrike.
Additionally, Hamas declared the death of an 85-year-old Israeli captive, claiming that the man suffered a panic attack after an airstrike.
Noa Marciano, a 19-year-old conscript in the Israeli army, had his funeral on Thursday in Modiin, Israel. The Israeli military claimed that Marciano’s body was found in Gaza City, close to Shifa Hospital. She had been kidnapped during the Hamas attack on October 7 from a military installation.
The body of 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss, a mother of five who was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri, has also been recovered, according to the military.
170 Russian citizens entered Egypt on Friday, according to the Emergencies Ministry of Russia, which was cited by Russian news outlets. They were among the approximately 200 individuals who managed to leave Gaza.
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