The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has warned of the dire situation at the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces continue to besiege the hospital for the 30th consecutive day.
“The PRCS renews its call to the international community for immediate action to protect Al-Amal Hospital and to lift the imposed siege before it is too late and the hospital is forced out of service,” the PRCS said in a post on X on Wednesday.
It highlighted the situation “due to the ongoing siege and targeting by the Israeli occupation for the 30th consecutive day.”
Earlier, the PRCS said Israeli artillery shelling in the vicinity of the hospital has disabled “the VHF system” which “is the core for communication with all PRCS field teams.”
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“This is severely increasing the challenges faced by PRCS teams, especially the ambulance service, particularly with a complete telecommunications blackout in Khan Yunis for 38 days,” it said on X, on Thursday.
The PRCS said the hospital on Tuesday “was subjected to multiple attacks, as the Israeli occupation forces targeted both the third and fourth floors with artillery shelling.”
Israeli forces also “continuously fire towards the hospital building, limiting the movement of teams inside and endangering the lives of patients and staff.”
Dialysis Patients
On Wednesday, the team managed to retrieve a decomposed body within the vicinity of the hospital.
Kidney dialysis patients and seriously injured individuals are at risk “due to the occupation’s refusal to provide safe passage for their transfer to other hospitals,” the PRCS warned.
The hospital is also experiencing severe shortages of medical supplies, medication, and food.
“Additionally, the drinking water is only sufficient for one day due to the occupation’s disruption of the hospital’s water desalination station.”
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In addition, “The Israeli occupation continues to block the arrival of food and medical supplies to Al-Amal Hospital, which threatens a humanitarian disaster and the cessation of operations within the hospital.”
Seven members of the PRCS remain detained by the Israeli forces “for the 13th consecutive day, with their fate unknown,” the body said.
Nasser Hospital Under Siege
Meanwhile, at the Al-Nasser Medical Complex, also in Khan Younis, the PRCS, in association with UN bodies, “evacuated 21 injured to the International Medical Corps and Indonesian Field Hospitals in Rafah.”
The medical complex has also been under siege from Israeli forces, amid a critical shortage of food, basic medical supplies and oxygen.
At least 70 hospital employees had been detained by Israeli troops while patients were ordered to evacuate, according to Al-Jazeera.
The World Health Organization said on Monday “there were still more than 180 patients and 15 doctors and nurses inside Nasser.”
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Some patients evacuated the hospital, while others, including those on dialysis and in intensive care, had to stay. At least four of them died after power and oxygen supplies had been shut down, and the lives of six others, including three children, were in danger.
On February 15, the Israeli army announced the launch of an operation at Nasser Hospital claiming that ‘terrorists’ were holed up inside.
This is not the first time that Israel has bombed or raided hospitals based on similar allegations.
Rising Death Toll
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 29,410 Palestinians have been killed, and 69,465 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(Palestine Chronicle)
