Surrounded by the sound of bombs, with terrified sufferers huddled removed from home windows, gasoline working low and clear water gone, the appearing director of Al Awda Hospital, one of many final hospitals in northern Gaza, stated he was grappling with a grim sense of déjà vu.
“No person can transfer, no one might be near the home windows,” stated Dr. Mohammad Salha, the appearing director. Throughout an 18-day siege at Al Awda in December, three medical staff had been shot and killed by way of the home windows.
Since Sunday, about 150 folks — together with docs, injured sufferers and infants, two of them born simply days in the past — have been trapped inside Al Awda, Dr. Salha stated, amid a renewed Israeli offensive within the north.
The hospital was successfully besieged by Israeli forces, Dr. Salha stated in a telephone interview and voice messages. Folks contained in the hospital are unable to depart, outdoors assist can’t attain them and ambulances can’t reply to calls to herald the injured.
Medical doctors With out Borders, which has employees members within the space, reported that the hospital was surrounded by tanks on Monday. An emergency medical crew deployed on the hospital by the World Well being Group was compelled to relocate on Might 13 due to “intensified hostilities,” the top of the group, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated on social media on Tuesday, in an attraction for the safety of the remaining sufferers and employees.
The Israeli army declined to touch upon its army operations round Al Awda.
The dire circumstances on the hospital are a part of a sample that has performed out repeatedly throughout the Gaza Strip over greater than seven months of warfare. Israeli forces have surrounded and raided hospital after hospital, claiming they’re being utilized by Hamas fighters. Israeli troopers have returned to raid some hospitals a second time in response to what the army stated was a resurgent Hamas presence.
In December, Israeli forces surrounded Al Awda Hospital for almost two weeks, then despatched troops inside, killing a number of folks and detaining others for interrogation, in response to Medical doctors With out Borders, whose employees members had been amongst these detained.
The hospital’s director, Dr. Ahmed Muhanna, was a kind of taken into Israeli custody and his whereabouts stay unknown, in response to ActionAid, a nongovernmental group that helps the hospital. Dr. Salha has since been main the hospital employees in his place.
The previous head of orthopedics at Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Adnan Ahmad Albursh, was additionally detained in December at Al Awda, the place he had been working. He died in Israeli custody, Palestinian officers and rights teams stated earlier this month.
With nobody capable of enter or exit Al Awda, the docs and sufferers have gathered in inside rooms and corridors in an effort to guard themselves from gunfire and shelling that’s hitting the outside partitions, Dr. Salha stated.
He stated 4 infants had been amongst these trapped on the hospital — two had been delivered by C-section on Might 18, and two others are the kids of nurses on the hospital.
On Monday, there have been roughly three days of gasoline left and no clear water, Dr. Salha stated. The folks trapped inside are “very afraid,” he stated.
The one different main hospital that was nonetheless partially functioning within the north, Kamal Adwan, was struck a number of instances on Tuesday, in response to witnesses, Gaza well being officers and the W.H.O. The Israeli army didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark in regards to the strikes.
Like Al Awda, Kamal Adwan was raided by Israeli forces in December, and it has since change into a important facility for treating malnourished youngsters within the north.
Footage from Reuters confirmed folks evacuating the realm across the hospital on Tuesday, some sporting white medical coats and others being wheeled out on gurneys. The hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, instructed the information company that after the doorway to the emergency division was bombed, missiles stored coming, stopping medics from reaching the victims.
“The scenario is catastrophic,” he stated.
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.