TEL AVIV — Efforts by health workers to evacuate some of The largest hospitals in Gaza The measures appear to be failing on Monday despite promises by Israeli forces to allow the wounded and sick to head south, according to doctors.
And the director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, OOPShas warned that all its aid operations in Gaza will soon “come to a standstill” due to a lack of fuel in the besieged enclave.
Despite promises of an evacuation effort by Israeli forces on Sunday, doctors in Al-Shifa The hospital said they were not aware of anyone leaving the facility.
Dr. Nidal Abu Hadrus, a neurosurgeon at Al-Shifa, told NBC News that it was impossible for people to leave with the sounds of shelling and gunshots outside. The IDF has said there have been “intense battles” around the facilities.
“It’s not safe to move. It’s not safe to stay. “We don’t know what to do,” she stated. “Please help us.”
“After one or two more days, I’m not sure we can leave the hospital, because I’m not sure who will still be alive,” Abu Hadrus said.
Israeli military officials say they are not targeting civilians and are instead going after Hamas, which they say is hiding in tunnels in Gaza, including under hospitals and specifically under Al-Shifa, accusations that both Hamas and hospital workers have denied.
NBC News journalists in the region are unable to report from hospitals due to intense fighting in the area.
While Israel has instituted “pauses” in fighting for humanitarian reasons and has been urging Palestinians have been leaving the north for weeks; The route south is dangerous and many have died along the way. In addition, southern Gaza has also suffered shelling during Israel’s offensive.
Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon and head of international cooperation at the Ministry of Health at Al-Shifa Hospital, agreed that it was not safe to move.
“No one comes out…No one comes in,” he said in a phone call Monday. People in the hospital are afraid they will be shot if they leave, she said.
Abusada said he was not aware of anyone leaving the hospital over the weekend, even though the IDF said it would open an evacuation corridor from the hospital to southern Gaza after receiving a request from Al-Shifa staff. to help evacuate 36 babies at risk of dying. after the deaths of three other babies, according to Palestinian health officials.
NBC News could not immediately reach workers at the facility.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a briefing on Saturday that Al-Shifa staff members had “requested that tomorrow we help babies in the pediatrics department get to a safer hospital.” The IDF said it was opening evacuation corridors not only from Al-Shifa but also from two other hospitals in Gaza City, Al-Rantisi and Al-Nasr.
Hagari said Sunday night that the Al-Rantisi and Al-Nasr hospitals had been evacuated as far as the IDF was aware. According to the World Health Organization, 600 patients remained in Al-Shifa on Monday.
Palestinian health officials responded by saying that approximately 10,000 cancer patients who were being treated at Al-Rantisi and the Turkish Hospital, another medical complex in the north, had been “left to die” when calls for evacuations forced those hospitals to leave. to function.
When asked for an update on evacuation efforts in Al-Shifa and to respond to reports from hospital staff that they were unaware of anyone evacuating, an IDF spokesperson did not directly respond to the question.
Instead, the spokesman said early Monday that soldiers were fighting “intense battles” against Hamas in the area surrounding the hospital, “but not the hospital itself.”
“Relentless bombardment”
An increasingly desperate situation was also developing at Al-Quds Hospital, with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society saying an evacuation convoy was forced to turn back after heading to the facility from southern Gaza.
“He had to do so due to the relentless shelling and the dangerous situation of the hospital in Tel Al-Hawa,” the Palestinian Society said.
The IDF said a “terrorist squad embedded itself in the Al-Quds area” while sharing a video that appeared to show someone with an RPG grenade launcher outside the facility. The IDF said RPG and small arms fire was directed at soldiers from the direction of Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, saying that a tank was damaged.
The IDF said the militants hid in the hospital after firing RPGs, although it did not provide video evidence of this. He said troops “responded with fire and fired projectiles toward the source of the fire,” killing “approximately 21 terrorists.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said any claims “about armed individuals launching projectiles from inside Al-Quds Hospital” were false. He said the video shared by the IDF “clearly shows that the armed individuals approached from the street while the occupation tanks were parked in front of and protected by the hospital, endangering the lives of the medical teams and patients.”
The society maintained that “there were no armed individuals inside the hospital and no shots were fired from inside. All those inside the hospital are the patients, their families and the medical staff.”
As fighting continues on the outskirts of Al-Quds, the Crescent Society warned that patients, as well as those taking shelter in the hospital and medical workers, “had no food, water or electricity.” NBC News could not immediately reach medical workers at the facility.
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