The deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip says an Israeli aerial assault has destroyed the cardiac department of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the besieged enclave.
Youssef Abu Rish said the facility was flattened as fighting raged around it.
“The occupier (Israel) completely destroyed the cardiac ward of Al-Shifa hospital… The two-story building has been completely destroyed in an air strike,” he told AFP on Sunday.
Eyewitnesses confirmed Sunday’s airstrike by the Tel Aviv regime on the building.
Al-Shifa Hospital, situated in northern Gaza, is currently surrounded by Israeli tanks and faces a blackout as its last generator ran out of fuel.
Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya said that up to 15,000 people, who are either patients in need of treatment or those who are seeking shelter, are now trapped.
“Patients are dying by the minute, victims and wounded are also dying, even babies in incubators,” he told Al Jazeera.
Abu Salmiya further said that two premature babies have died after the neonatal intensive care unit stopped working due to a lack of electricity, warning that 37 other babies are also at risk.
Israeli troops were “shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital,” and prevented movement between the buildings in the compound, he noted.
On Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had lost communication with its contacts in the hospital, expressing “grave concerns” for the safety of those trapped there due to Israel’s relentless attacks.
.@WHO has lost communication with its contacts in Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/SouW2W3cad
— WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (@WHOEMRO) November 12, 2023
Israel waged the bloody war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity.
Since the start of the war, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 11,100 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured about 27,500 others.
It has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
