Six premature babies and nine intensive care patients died due to a lack of electricity at Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, according to a new report by the deputy health minister of the Hamas government.
In a report made on Sunday night, Youssef Abou Rich, present at the hospital where thousands of displaced people are also sheltering, announced the death of five babies and seven patients.
On Saturday, the hospital announced that 39 premature babies were still in the hospital and that nurses were performing “manual breathing massages” to keep them alive.
A doctor from the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also indicated that 17 patients were in intensive care.
According to the daily report of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the latest attacks caused damage to the cardiovascular disease care area and the maternity ward, among other hospital facilities in Gaza City, the capital of the fringe.
“Some internally displaced persons, staff and patients managed to escape, but others remain trapped inside,” the document highlights, recalling that the lives of 36 babies in incubators and patients with kidney problems on dialysis are at risk.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that it has lost contact with Al Shifa, while another hospital in the Gaza capital, Al Quds, is no longer functioning due to lack of fuel.
Over the weekend, the United Nations denounced at least 137 attacks “against health care” in Gaza since the start of the war with Israel, actions it describes as “a violation of international humanitarian law and conventions.”
“In the last 36 days, the WHO has recorded at least 137 attacks against health care in Gaza,” said the United Nations (UN) agency for the Eastern Mediterranean, in a joint statement with the regional delegations of UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund and UNFPA. – United Nations Population Fund, cited by EFE.
According to the note, these attacks caused the death of 521 people, including 16 humanitarian workers, and left almost 700 injured, including patients and health professionals.
The organizations also say they are “horrified” by the recent attacks against the Al Shifa hospital – the largest in Gaza -, the Al Rantissi Nasser pediatric hospital, the Al Quds hospital and others located in the city and in the north of the Palestinian enclave, where “Many people died, including children.”
These entities received reports of deaths of “premature babies and newborns receiving life support” due to power outages and fuel depletion, a resource that Israel prevents from entering the enclave for fear that it will be used by the Hamas group.
On October 7, Hamas carried out an attack of unprecedented dimensions on Israeli territory, leaving more than 1,200 dead, mostly civilians, and more than 200 hostages, whom it holds captive in the Gaza Strip.
Israel then began strong reprisals against that poor Palestinian enclave, controlled by Hamas since 2007, with cuts in the supply of food, water, electricity and fuel and daily bombings, followed by a ground offensive that completed the siege of Gaza City on Thursday. .
This conflict caused at least 11,000 deaths in the Gaza Strip and 1,400 in Israel.
Source: TSF
