A Gaza sanitarium released a heartbreaking print before a moment showing seven babies snuggled together because their incubators had broken and they demanded to stay warm to survive.
Credit: NDTV
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Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza City has drawn heavy combat into hospitals and other medical facilities.
Al Shifa Hospital chief Mohammad Abu Salmiyah revealed on Tuesday that the largest hospital in Gaza has buried 179 people—including babies—in a “mass grave” inside its grounds. This highlights the dire humanitarian situation that is unfolding at medical facilities around the region.
The doctors at the hospital claimed they had no choice but to bury them in a mass grave. When the sanitarium’s energy ran out, 29 cases from the ferocious care unit and seven babies were buried. The doctors also mentioned The hospital complex is strewn with bodies. There’s no electricity left.
The scenario was described as “inhuman” by a hospital surgeon who was involved with Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders. There is no power in the hospital. The water is absent. The meal is absent. Tel Aviv maintains that the hospital is situated atop a network of tunnels that are a part of Hamas’ underground headquarters. The Al Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City, was cut off from the outside world for more than 72 hours last week following a deadly blockade by Israeli forces that included tanks at the front gates.
Israel Targets Gaza Hospitals
Israeli forces moved closer to Gaza City’s major sanitarium gates on Monday, their primary target in their crusade to seize control of the northern half of the Gaza Strip. Medical staff said that patients, including babies, were passing away in the sanitarium due to an energy shortage. Speaking from within Al Shifa Hospital, prophet Ashraf Al-Qidra of the Gaza health ministry asserted that 32 cases—including three babies—had died in the last three days as a result of the sanitarium’s power loss and leak.
There were still at least 650 people inside who were in dire need of the Red Cross or another impartial organization evacuating them to another medical institution. Hamas disputes Israel’s claims that the hospital is situated above tunnels that serve as a headquarters for Hamas fighters, who are to blame for the hospital’s predicament because they use patients as shields.
The intense combat nearby may have trapped hundreds, if not more than 10,000 people inside Al Shifa, including patients, workers, and displaced civilians, according to the United Nations. For a week, Al Quds, the second large hospital in the region, has been isolated from the outside world.
Parties to a conflict are required to provide the protection of hospitals and medical professionals, as stipulated by international humanitarian law. According to the United Nations’ Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Monday update from Gaza, they cannot be used to defend military objectives from attack, but any action surrounding or within them must safeguard patients, employees, and other civilians.
Israel had promised to assist in the babies’ evacuation. That hasn’t occurred thus far.
The same hospital released a heartbreaking photo earlier today showing seven newborns bundled up, some with tubes protruding from them and others dressed in plain green hospital clothes. The seven, who collectively weigh less than 1.5 kg, are among the 39 preterm delivered babies. In order to control body temperature, each should be housed in an incubator. Since there isn’t enough fuel to run the generators that power the incubators, they were instead moved to regular beds over the weekend, where they were arranged side by side and covered with serviette packets and cardboard boxes filled with sterile gauze.
