Gaza Health System ‘Streked Beyond Breaking Point’, which warns

Intensive Israeli ground activities and new evacuation -orders stretch the health system of Gaza from the breaking point, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the Indonesian, Kamal Adwan and Al-AWDA hospitals in the northern cities Beit Lahia and Jabalia were announced on Tuesday in an evacuation zone. Two more hospitals are within 1 km (0.6 miles).

Kamal Adwan was out of service because of the hostilities in the neighborhood and the Indonesian hospital was inaccessible because of the presence of Israeli troops around it, he added.

Al-AWDA Hospital is still functioning, but the director told the BBC on Wednesday that it was “completely besieged”.

“Nobody can move and we can’t receive things from outside the hospital,” said Dr. Mohammed Salha.

He added that there was a quadcopter drone “shooting in the vicinity of the hospital and the outskirts of the hospital”.

“We also hear shooting from the tanks … maybe 400 or 500 meters (road).”

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that it “operated against terror goals in the area”, but that it was “not aware of any siege in the hospital itself”.

Dr. Tedros said: “Even if health facilities are not attacked or forced to evacuate, hosteals and military presence hind patients and staff to gain access to care, and those of supplying hospitals, so that they cannot quickly become functional.”

“We have seen this too often – it should no longer be able to happen.”

Médecins without Frontières (MSF) also said that at least 20 medical facilities in Gaza were partially or completely out of service in the past week by Israeli ground activities, air strikes and evacuation orders.

The charity demanded that the Israeli authorities stop what it called the “intentional suffocation of Gaza and the destruction of his health care system”.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March and resumed his military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefires. It said that Hamas wanted to put pressure to release the remaining 58 hostages, of whom a maximum of 23 is supposed to live.

After a few days of intense bombing, the IDF launched an extensive offensive on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the ground troops would “control all areas” from Gaza. The plan is said to be completely cleaning up the north of citizens and moving them in the south by violence.

More than 600 people were killed and 2,000 injured in Gaza in the past week, according to Hamas-Raunde Health Minister of Hamas. The UN says that tens of thousands of people are newly displaced.

Netanyahu also said that Israel would allow a “basic” amount of food in Gaza to prevent a famine. But so far the UN is unable to collect the dozens of trucks that have been allowed since Monday.

MSF said that the number of help so far was not enough and it described as “a smokescreen to pretend that the siege is over”.

On Tuesday, the WHO representative said in the Palestinian territories that he had recently returned from Gaza and witnessed how the health system attacks and acute shortages of stocks.

“Every time you come to Gaza, you always think it can’t get worse. But it gets worse,” Dr. Rik Peeperkorn to reporters in Geneva.

He described how the Al-AWDA Hospital “was overwhelmed by injuries” and lay with few necessities. The hostilities had damaged the facility, disrupted access and deterred people to seek healthcare, he added.

He said that Indonesian hospital hardly functioned, almost inaccessible, and that most patients had left last week after an employee was killed, one patient was injured and the facility was damaged during intensified hostilities.

Only 15 people, including patients and staff, were still in the hospital from Tuesday, an urgent need for food and water, he added.

The hospital generator was also hit by an Israeli quadcopter on Monday evening, which caused a major fire and a blackout, according to MER-C Indonesia, the NGO that the facility built.

On Wednesday, a woman in the hospital told the BBC by telephone that two of the patients were in a “serious state”.

Accidents could be heard in the background of the call.

“Five minutes ago there was intense shooting in the hospital area,” she said, adding that she could see tanks.

The woman also said they still had food stocks in the hospital, but “were” confronted with a water crisis “.

The IDF said the BBC that it was active in the area around the hospital and focused on “terrorist infrastructure places”, but that it was not aimed at the hospital itself.

In another incident on Tuesday, a paramedic said that his ambulance was shot by an Israeli drone while transporting staff and food between Al-AWDA and Kamal Adwan Hospitals.

Khaled Sadeh said he was with another ambulance when bullets hit the windows of both vehicles. Nobody was injured.

Dr. Salha shared photos of the ambulances and confirmed that Mr. Sadeh was unable to return to Al-Awda because of the threat of Israeli fire.

The BBC provided details of the allegations and photos to the IDF, but it said it could “not confirm” the reports.

Hospitals and medical staff are specially protected under international humanitarian law.

Hospitals only lose that protection in certain circumstances. They are used as the basis for launching an attack, as a weapon depot, or to hide healthy hunters.

The IDF has urged his troops to work in accordance with international law. In most cases where the hospitals attacked, it said that they were incorrectly used by Hamas – a statement that the group denied.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the European Hospital – the only facility that offers neurosurgery, heart care and cancer treatment in Gaza – out of use since 13 May.

That day, the courtyard and the surrounding area of ​​the hospital were hit by a series of Israeli air strikes whose defense minister of Israel said he had focused on an underground bunker where the head of the military wing of Hamas, Mohammed Sinwar, hid. The civilian defense agency of Gaza, run by Hamas, said that the attack killed at least 28 people, but it is not yet clear whether Sinwar died.

The facility is also in an evacuation zone designated by Israel’s, which has been covering almost the entire eastern half of Khan Younis since Monday.

Dr. Tedros said that Nasser, Al-Amal and Al-AQSA hospitals, as well as one field hospital, were within 1 km from the zone.

Dr. Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who works in the Nasser Hospital, said in a video on social media on Wednesday That she was very concerned about the fact that the facility was evacuated or cut off by an Israeli troops from Al-Aqsa, who in the central city of Deir Al-Balah.

“If we are cut off from the middle area, there are really no other hospitals around us that can enter into the evacuation of Nasser,” she explained.

“We have a number of amazing field hospitals … But none of them are able to do the type of operation that we do here. And none of them has an ICU capacity or generated oxygen. So even they could not handle the amount of patients we have.”

She warned: “If Nasser is evacuated, we really look at the approaching death of hundreds of patients because we can’t take them anywhere.”

Nasser was also struck by an Israeli strike on 13 May, in which two people were killed, including a Palestinian journalist who was treated for injuries he sustained in an earlier strike on a Tentekamp in the complex. The attack also destroyed 18 beds in a burns, according to the WHO.

The IDF accused the journalist of being a Hamas agent and claimed that the hospital was used by the group to “perform terrorist suddenly”.

Another strike on Monday damaged Nasser’s medical warehouse seriously and destroyed critical who delivery, according to the director of the hospital.

Suha Shaath, a pharmacist from Khan Younis who was told by the IDF to evacuate and go to camps in the Coastal Al-Mawasi area, the BBC told in a voice note: “I have not left my house so far because I have not found a place to set up my tent.”

“The humanitarian situation is very serious – no water, no food, no fuel. The shelling touch everywhere,” she added.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the cross -border attack of Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were held hostage.

Since then, at least 53,655 people have been killed in Gaza, including 3,509 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the health minister of the area.