Author name: Helping Gaza

lters in northern Gaza even as Israel’s war against Hamas militants left the territory’s largest hospital all but inoperable. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Shifa medical center in Gaza “is not functioning as a hospital anymore” and the situation at Gaza’s largest hospital is “dire and perilous.” The WHO chief said, “The constant gunfire and bombings’” around the hospital have “exacerbated the already critical circumstances.” Al-Quds, another Gaza hospital, shut down Sunday because it ran out of fuel. The Palestinian Red Crescent, which operates the facility, said preparations are being made for Israeli forces to evacuate about 6,000 patients, medics and displaced people. Doctors running low on supplies at Shifa are reported to be performing surgery there on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia. One medic shared a photo showing nine premature babies in a shared crib. Israel claims that Hamas, a U.S. designated terror group, is shielding itself among civilians at the hospital and has a command center in and beneath the medical compound. Israel has not provided photos or videos to back up its claims about Hamas militants at Shifa, although it has shared footage of militants operating in residential neighborhoods and positioning rockets and weapons near schools and mosques. Both Hamas and the hospital staff at Shifa deny the Israeli allegations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday there’s no reason why patients at Gaza’s besieged Shifa hospital can’t be safely evacuated but contended that Hamas militants are “doing everything to keep them in harm’s way.” SEE ALSO: Netanyahu: Hamas Blocking Safe Removal of Patients From Gaza Hospital The Israeli leader told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that 100 patients had been taken out of the hospital and that tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the immediate environs had moved safely out of the area along safe corridors heading south out of Gaza City. But Israel-Hamas fighting continued near the hospital and the hospital’s director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said the facility was surrounded by the conflict. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program that the United States “does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we’ve had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this.” Some treatment of patients at the hospital has been suspended because of its diminished fuel supply, with two babies dying as a result and dozens more patients left at risk. Netanyahu, without providing details, said Israel “just offered Shifa hospital the fuel,” but that “they refused it.” Meanwhile, Sullivan told U.S. news talk shows that the U.S. is “actively engaged” with Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials to free nearly 240 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, including nine Americans and a foreign national with U.S. employment rights. Sullivan said President Joe Biden is “not going to rest until we achieve that deal so that every single one of those hostages can come home safely.” SEE ALSO: Blinken: ‘Much More Needs to Be Done’ to Protect Palestinian Civilians Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie was in Israel over the weekend. Christie is quoted as saying he will tell America “exactly” what he says he has seen there in a foreign policy speech he is scheduled to deliver Wednesday, he told CNN. The White House said Biden spoke Sunday with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani about the war in Gaza, including about efforts to free the hostages. Netanyahu told CNN, “We’re doing everything we can … and many things I can’t say” to free the hostages. The Israeli leader continued to reject the U.S. proposal to have the Palestinian Authority run Gaza and the West Bank territory once the war ends. SEE ALSO: Netanyahu Rules Out Palestinian Authority Governing Gaza After War Netanyahu said control must be “a reconstructed civilian authority” because the Palestinian Authority “is not willing to fight Hamas” and “they teach their children to hate Israel.” Netanyahu again declined to discuss blame for Israel’s failure to have knowledge of the shock Oct. 7 Hamas attack on the Jewish state, which killed about 1,200 people inside Israel. “There will be enough time [for such a discussion] after the war,” Netanyahu said. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that taking control of hospitals in Gaza would be key to Israel’s goal of rooting out Hamas. But it would require “a lot of tactical creativity” to do so without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Israeli army officials accuse Hamas of hiding weapons in tunnels under hospitals and setting up a command center beneath Shifa and other hospitals, making the buildings legitimate military targets. The Israel Defense Forces denied firing on Shifa Friday and accused Hamas of firing a rocket aimed at Israeli troops that hit the hospital instead. The Palestinian death toll has steadily grown to more than 11,000, about 40% of them children, according to Palestinian officials. Israel says 1,200 people were killed in Israel on October 7, the day of the shock Hamas attack. The World Health Organization chief says a child dies every 10 minutes. “The situation on the ground is impossible to describe,” Tedros said Friday. “Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals; families crammed into overcrowded schools, desperate for food and water.” “If there is a hell on Earth today,” said Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian spokesperson, “Its name is northern Gaza.” Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

The Palestinian viewpoint is credible and vital as Israel continues to unleash carnage on GazaMon 13 Nov 2023 12.30 GMT In these past few sleepless weeks, I have seen images and videos that will haunt me forever. Palestinian parents carrying their children’s charred and dismembered bodies in plastic bags to makeshift morgues; whole families, across three generations, crushed under the homes they built; exhausted doctors working desperately by torchlight and operating on patients without anaesthetic; one of the oldest churches in the world, sheltering the displaced, bombed. So far more than 10,000 Palestinians have been reported killed – more, after one month, than the number of civilians killed in Ukraine after two years of war. The Israeli war machine is always horrifically ruthless. But this time we are witnessing a level of violence not seen since the 1948 Nakba – during which about 70% of the Palestinian population was forcibly displaced and more than 500 communities were wiped out completely. Indeed, for nearly four weeks the Israeli regime has cut off power and limited access to the internet, reducing contact with the outside and meaning the full scale of its assault has been hidden from the world. Some Palestinians in Gaza are still managing to maintain some communication by charging phones in cars and using power from what solar panels are left. Among them are Palestinian journalists – at least 32 media workers have been killed since Hamas’s offensive on 7 October – who are risking their lives to show us the devastation that is being wrought upon them. Yet despite the plethora of pictures, videos and testimonies that have come out in the past few weeks, Palestinians once again find themselves in a position where they are denied authority over their own experiences and seen as not credible. This was demonstrated par excellence following the Israeli army expulsion order for 1.1 million people in northern Gaza, when they told the world that they would allow for safe routes for Palestinians to head south. Yet these “safe routes” were ones that they had bombed, in one case hitting a convoy and killing at least 70 Palestinians, including children. Independent investigations confirmed what Palestinians had been saying all along – that there were no “safe routes” out of north Gaza. While Palestinian journalists have been phenomenally brave and extensive in their coverage, too much of the international mainstream media has insisted on giving credence to Israeli regime officials: for example, when they provided “proof” of a recording of a conversation between Palestinians claiming responsibility for the al-Ahli Arab hospital bombing. Palestinians immediately argued that it was falsified based on the accents and dialogue. A Channel 4 News investigation cited two independent journalists who determined the recording was not “credible”. What continues to be astounding is that a regime recognised under international law as the occupying power, and as one that many human rights groups agree is imposing a system of apartheid, is trusted to relay information about its own atrocities. Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza are questioned and interrogated at every breath they take. Even their corpses are questioned, as when Joe Biden said he didn’t have “confidence” in the numbers of Palestinians killed. Gaza’s health ministry issued a list with all the names of those killed along with their ID numbers, which are registered with the Israeli authorities. The Israeli regime continues to dehumanise Palestinians as part of its tactic to sow seeds of doubt on their testimonies and to justify the atrocities it is committing. The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said they were fighting “human animals” and the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called Palestinians “children of darkness” in a now deleted tweet. The Israeli minister for heritage even raised the possibility of dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza. So much coverage is complicit in this dehumanisation of Palestinians, as Mohammed El-Kurd found when appearing on British media. “Our death is so quotidian,” he writes, “that journalists report it as though they’re reporting the weather.” Indeed, we often see the time-old linguistic gymnastics whereby Israelis are killed yet Palestinians simply “die”. The reality is that Palestinians have been dehumanised to such an extent, that even when they hold up their murdered children in front of cameras and display them to the world, there are those who will still say they are responsible for their own children’s deaths. But make no mistake, what we are seeing in Gaza is an unfolding genocide and Palestinians are showing the world what it looks like in real time. We have all been profoundly shaken by recent events in Israel and Gaza. This latest conflict marks the start of a chapter that is likely to affect millions of lives, both in the Middle East and further afield, for years to come. With reporters on the ground, and others producing live blogs, videos, podcasts and photo essays as the story unfolds, the Guardian is dedicated to bringing you independent, fact-checked journalism 24/7.  We appreciate that not everyone can afford to pay for news right now. That’s why we choose to keep our journalism open for everyone. If this is you, please continue to read for free. But if you can, can we count on your support at this perilous time? Here are three good reasons to make the choice to fund us today.  1. Our quality, investigative journalism is a scrutinising force at a time when the rich and powerful are getting away with more and more. 2. We are independent and have no billionaire owner controlling what we do, so your money directly powers our reporting. 3. It doesn’t cost much, and takes less time than it took to read this message.

Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa met with her Israeli counterpart on November 3 and condemned the “brutal killing and kidnapping by Hamas and others,” while expressing “Japan’s solidarity with the people of Israel.” Kamikawa called for all parties to follow international law. A few hours later, Kamikawa met with her Palestinian counterpart, expressing her “sincerest condolences” and “sympathy” to victims of the hostilities in the Gaza Strip, and said Japan is prepared to increase its humanitarian aid. The contrast in message was unmistakable. Japan is right to call out the heinous October 7 attack inside Israel by Hamas-led fighters who killed about 1,200 people, including hundreds of civilians, and took more than 200 hostages, including children, according to the Israeli government. These acts are war crimes. But Japan’s government should also explicitly call out war crimes for which Israeli authorities are responsible, including cutting off water and electricity, a form of collective punishment, and blocking all but a trickle of humanitarian aid. As of November 8, the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,300 children, in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. United Nations secretary-general António Guterres stated: “We must demand that all parties uphold and respect their obligations under international humanitarian law [and] take constant care in the conduct of military operations to spare civilians.” Israeli authorities have maintained an abusive occupation for decades and have been committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians. While statements and aid are crucial, as the chair of the Group of Seven (G7) nations and a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Japanese government should do more. Japan can play a particularly important role in supporting the ICC’s mission to ensure accountability for serious crimes by all parties. Since 2021, the ICC prosecutor’s office has been investigating alleged serious crimes in Palestine, which is an ICC member. On October 10, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said there was “clear evidence” of war crimes in Israel and Gaza and that it would be sharing information with relevant judicial authorities, especially the ICC. The Japanese government should ensure the ICC has the political, diplomatic and financial support it needs to carry out its work on Palestine and across its global mandate. It’s critical that Japan stays true to its public pledge of human rights diplomacy and applies it consistently. 

The refugee agency for Palestinians has said that aid work is at a breaking point as the Israeli siege cuts off access to fuel. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees has said that it will be forced to suspend aid work in the Gaza Strip within 48 hours, as an Israeli siege strains access to much-needed fuel. In a social media post on Monday, Thomas White, the Gaza chief for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said that fuel has not been allowed into Gaza for more than a month, as humanitarian conditions reach critical levels. KEEP READING list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3 ‘Patients are dying’: What we know about Gaza hospitals under Israeli siege list 2 of 3 At least 25 people killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza City school list 3 of 3 Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 13, destroy al-Shifa’s cardiac ward end of list “The humanitarian operation in Gaza will grind to a halt in the next 48 hours as no fuel is allowed to enter Gaza,” White wrote on X, formerly Twitter. As Israel continues to hammer Gaza with air strikes amid a ground offensive on the territory, a siege cutting off access to food, electricity, and fuel has overwhelmed organisations trying to assist those displaced and wounded by the fighting. Palestinian authorities have said that Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 11,240 people, including more than 4,600 children, since fighting began on October 7 when the Palestinian armed group Hamas carried out an attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. The UN said on Monday that 101 workers in Gaza have been killed since the beginning of the fighting. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.603.0_en.html#goog_211947881Play Video Video Duration 06 minutes 14 seconds06:14UN flags at half-mast for colleagues killed in Gaza In Gaza, where the health system is being stretched to the breaking point, the collapse of medical and communications services has stymied casualty updates since November 10. Palestinian doctors have pleaded that hospitals are running out of fuel, leaving them unable to save patients, including newborn children in incubators, as electricity generators stop working. Israeli forces have closed in around al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, with medical workers and at least 650 patients trapped inside. Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said that 32 patients died in the last three days due to a shortage of power. Israel says the hospital sits atop a complex of tunnels used by Hamas, an accusation the group denies. “The tanks are in front of the hospital. We are under full blockade. It’s a totally civilian area. Only hospital facility, hospital patients, doctors and other civilians stay in the hospital. Someone should stop this,” Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a surgeon, told the news outlet Reuters. He added that Israel had bombed water tanks, water wells, and water pumps for the hospital and that those remaining were “barely surviving”. Officials have also warned that the conditions created by the bombing and the siege could lead to the outbreak of disease, with access to clean water severely restricted. “This morning two of our main water distribution contractors ceased working – they simply ran out of fuel – which will deny 200,000 people potable water,” White said. Mansour Shouman, a displaced Palestinian who fled northern Gaza and sought refuge at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the conditions at the site were “primitive”. “Let’s leave aside the food and the water, electricity, fuel. There is no safety, there is no security,” he said. “We

As the conflict between Israel and Gaza enters its 39th day, these are the main developments. Published On 14 Nov 202314 Nov 2023 Here is the situation on Tuesday, November 14, 2023: Latest on human impact and fighting Gaza’s hospitals Diplomacy Attacks in the West Bank

US president says he hopes to see ‘less intrusive action’ at Al-Shifa Hospital as patients and staff remain trapped inside. Published On 14 Nov 202314 Nov 2023 United States President Joe Biden has said that Gaza’s largest hospital “must be protected” as Israeli tanks surround the facility with hundreds of patients and staff trapped inside. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Biden said he hoped to see Israel take “less intrusive action” at Al-Shifa Hospital, which medical staff say has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli bombing and snipers. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Why has David Cameron returned to front-line politics in the UK? list 2 of 4 The US is facing a loneliness ‘epidemic’. Can art help reverse the trend? list 3 of 4 Indonesians boycott McDonald’s, Starbucks over support for Israel list 4 of 4 Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 629 end of list “My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals and we remain in contact with the Israelis,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office. “Also, there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that’s being negotiated, as well, with the Qataris … being engaged,” the US President added. “So I remain somewhat hopeful but hospitals must be protected.” Biden’s comments came as medics warned of mounting casualties among patients, including newborn babies, at the hospital, which has been encircled by Israeli forces since Saturday. Witnesses on Monday reported that tanks and armoured vehicles were positioned just metres from the gate of the medical complex, where staff say power outages, dwindling medical supplies and Israeli bombardment have made taking care of patients next to impossible. At least 32 patients, including six premature babies, have died at the hospital since Friday, Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said on Monday. Three nurses have also been killed at the facility, the UN relief agency in the occupied Palestinian territory said on Sunday. Israel has claimed that Hamas operates a command centre under the hospital, which the armed group and hospital officials have denied. Israel’s military said on Monday that its soldiers had discovered a weapons cache in a tunnel connected to Rantissi Hospital, a facility for treating children in northern Gaza, sharing a video of what it said were grenades, suicide vests and other explosives. US politics, Canada’s multiculturalism, South America’s geopolitical rise—we bring you the stories that matter.Sign up “Hamas hides in hospitals,” spokesman Daniel Hagari said during a nightly press conference. “Today, we will expose this to the world.” Since Sunday, the Al-Shifa, Al-Quds and Kamal Adwan hospitals have suspended operations due to Israeli bombardment and dwindling supplies of fuel and medicines. Israel has told civilians to leave Al-Shifa and medics to send patients elsewhere. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Khan Younis, said the “Israeli military is calling on patients to step out of the hospital with their hands above their heads”. “But some of them need wheelchairs while others are disabled, hence cannot walk,” he said. “It’s hard to comprehend these are the demands of the Israeli military, while at the same time [it is] playing nice with the media, telling journalists ‘we are offering a safe corridor’.” Israel has pledged to eliminate Hamas in response to the armed group’s October 7 attacks on southern Israeli communities, which Israeli officials say killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel’s bombardment and ground operation in Gaza since then have killed at least 11,240 Palestinians, including more than 4,600 children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-governed enclave.

Turkey’s forthright support for Palestine could affecting efforts to revive ties with Israel. Here’s a timeline of their rocky relations. Istanbul, Turkey – The mounting death toll in Gaza has seen Turkish politicians, especially President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, become increasingly direct in their criticism of Israel. Erdogan recently said he had severed ties entirely with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s onslaught, although he did not lower the level of communications between the governments. KEEP READING list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Israeli minister supports ‘voluntary migration’ of Palestinians in Gaza list 2 of 4 Doctors move premature babies at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital list 3 of 4 Out of medicines, care: Gaza’s cancer patients face death amid Israel war list 4 of 4 Photos: Amid the ruins, Palestinians struggle to survive in Gaza end of list “Netanyahu is no longer someone we can talk to. We erased him and threw him away,” the president told reporters as he returned from an overseas trip on November 3. A freeze on several fronts Erdogan’s comments suggest he has “thrown into the deep freezer, if not ditched altogether, the rapprochement that Turkey and Israel had been pursuing,” said Wolfango Piccoli, co-president at political risk advisory group Teneo. Those efforts at mending ties followed a decade of tensions, after Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish aid ship, in 2010, killing 10 Turkish activists. The vessel was trying to break Israel’s blockade and deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. On November 4, Turkey’s foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to Tel Aviv, citing Israel’s refusal to accept a ceasefire, “continuing attacks against civilians”, and denying free entry to humanitarian aid. It was the culmination of a sharp dive in ties since October 7. On October 20, Erdogan said Israel’s operations amounted to “genocide”. At a rally on October 28, Erdogan referred to Israel as a “war criminal” over its bombardment of Gaza since Hamas’s cross-border assault three weeks earlier. That same day, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen issued a formal recall of all Israeli diplomats from Turkey. The volume of trade between the two countries has also dropped by 50 percent since October 7, Turkey’s trade minister, Omer Bolat, told a news conference in Kuwait last week. The fracture is the latest in Turkey’s often stormy but generally beneficial relationship with Israel since its establishment as a state in 1948. Early recognition of Israel The relationship between Turkey and Israel since the latter’s formation has generally been characterised by warmer ties. Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognise Israel’s sovereignty in 1949, less than a year after it declared independence. Ankara officially opened its first diplomatic office in Israel in 1950. Continued Palestinian support Still, Turkey’s support for Palestinian self-determination has been constant throughout, even as it has tried to keep relations with Israel afloat. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Ankara joined calls for Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian land it occupied — the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights — but resisted demands from Arab states to sever diplomatic links with Tel Aviv. In 1979, Yasser Arafat travelled to Ankara to open the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office. The following year, relations with Israel were again strained over what Turkey called Tel Aviv’s “unconciliatory” policy, which included Israel’s decision to claim Jerusalem as its capital. But when Turkey recognised Palestine as a state in 1988 — becoming the first country with diplomatic ties with Israel to do so — it declined to grant the Palestinian envoy full diplomatic status, after Israeli complaints. Shared interests with Israel By the 1980s, trade and tourism between Turkey and Israel were growing. State-owned Turkish Airlines started direct flights to Israel in 1986. In 1993, a Turkish foreign minister visited Israel for the first time. From the mid-1990s, there was close cooperation in the areas of defence and intelligence between the two states — both of which were closely supported by the United States and shared concerns about potential threats from neighbours such as Syria, Iraq and Iran. Two defence agreements were signed in 1996, paving the way for a strategic military partnership that included the upgrading of F-4 and F-5 jet aircraft, M-60 tanks and helicopters. Turkey, Israel and the US participated in joint aerial and naval exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean until 2009. Erdogan’s balancing act Turkey continued with its ties with Israel after the landslide election victory for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in 2002. Erdogan visited Tel Aviv as prime minister three years later, presenting himself as a possible mediator between Israelis and Palestinians. In 2004, Erdogan condemned Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin as “state-sponsored terrorism”, reflecting wider Turkish support for Palestinians, and Hamas in particular. Yet, during high-level visits in 2006 and 2007, Turkey worked to resolve tensions between Syria and Israel over Syria’s involvement in Lebanon and support for Palestinian groups and Hezbollah. Advertisement In 2007, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul offered to help secure the release of three captured soldiers: Gilad Shalit, who was held by Hamas from 2006 to 2011, and Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who were both held by Hezbollah from 2006 until their bodies were returned to Israel in 2008. Israeli President Shimon Peres at the time thanked Turkey, as well as Egypt and Germany, for helping release Shalit. The three-week war on Gaza in 2008-2009 reinforced tensions between Turkey and Israel. The breakdown The assault on the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marmara led to a diplomatic falling-out, which saw Ankara expel the Israeli ambassador. Official ties remained frosty until 2016 when the two countries agreed to a compensation deal and a pathway to normalising relations. But two years later, two events put a pause on those normalising efforts: dozens of Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli security forces at the separation fence Israel built around Gaza and the US decided to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Despite rekindled diplomatic tensions, business between Turkey and Israel continued to boom. Between 2010, the year of the Mavi Marmara incident,

Sewage is overflowing into the streets of Gaza because of the lack of electricity causing a health and environmental disaster. “A complete halt of all sewage pumps – which led to the overflow of sewage in the streets and neighbourhoods – is creating a health and environmental abomination and the spread of diseases,” said Ahmad al-Soufi, president of Rafah municipality. “We are now witnessing a deterioration in the environmental situation resulting from the accumulation of waste in the streets, alleys and all neighbourhoods and the spread of diseases and epidemics of all kinds.”

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital warns that patients’ next transfer will be to mass graves if Israeli aggression continues. The steady churn of dialysis machines. The rhythmic drip-drip of blood from IVs. The low hum of life-support equipment keeping the babies in incubators alive, tubes running in and out of their little bodies. The routine functioning of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip lies in sharp contrast to the chaos of weeks of Israeli bombardment, which in recent days has targeted a number of hospitals in the besieged enclave. KEEP READING Gaza’s al-Quds Hospital ceases operations amid Israeli attacks Gaza’s two biggest hospitals cease operations as WHO warns of rising deaths Photos: More death and destruction in Gaza as Israeli attacks continue Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 38 But power and water crises due to Israel’s campaign after Hamas’s October 7 attack – which have already shuttered more than half of Gaza’s 35 hospitals – are drastically affecting the central Gaza hospital as well. Incubator babies and dialysis patients hooked up to machines dependent on fuel are at particular risk – especially as Al-Aqsa is the sole facility for kidney patients in the central Gaza Strip governorate, Khalil al-Dakran, the hospital’s spokesperson, told Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad. “If electricity and water outages persist and fuel depletes, patients will be transferred to mass graves if the aggression continues,” al-Dakran warned. “And the world [just] watches,” he continued bitterly. Dialing down dialysis care The hospital has seen a surge in the number of patients since the start of the latest conflict, with thousands of wounded streaming in and taxing the hospital’s capacity. In addition, as thousands of displaced people from northern regions of Gaza poured southwards, the number of patients increased, especially those with chronic diseases needing treatment, like dialysis for kidney ailments. The hospital has had to limit dialysis treatment times from four hours to two-and-a-half hours, while also having to decrease the frequency of patients’ dialysis sessions per week, al-Dakran said. Patients are terrified, not only of the bombs raining down, but also about whether they will receive the care they need. “I undergo dialysis three times a week, waiting for hours on crowded roads, terrified,” displaced woman Maryam al-Jayar told Sanad. “We wait so long, from morning till night, for dialysis. All while the bombing continues. Now I get shorter and less frequent dialysis and on top of that with water and electricity shortages the dialysis process itself is not working right and can cause blood clots,” Nesma Sharir, another kidney patient said. Infants found under the rubble Meanwhile, the neonatal intensive care department at Al-Aqsa is also buckling under the pressure of the war. There, nurse Warda al-Awawda hovers above the incubators, checking on the babies lying inside them. Al-Awawda and her colleagues say there have been a lot more newborns admitted to the intensive care unit, not only premature infants but also newborns injured by the bombings. Sometimes the journey the babies have to take to get to the hospital contributes to their deteriorated health, al-Awada told Sanad, pointing out that she has had mothers with their babies – or babies on their own – arrive on all sorts of transport, including donkey carts in some cases. Some babies are carried into the hospital in the caring but jostling arms of someone who has just rescued them from under the rubble and wants them to get the care they need as fast as possible and there are no stretchers available. One infant, Hassan Mishmish, arrived at the hospital after being rescued from under the rubble. His parents were found dead. “He was in the arms of his dead mother, covered in dust,” al-Awawda said. “All the nursing staff take turns caring for him after he lost his parents. “His brother is also injured, he’s in the children’s ward, and his grandmother is also injured. There is nobody from his family left to take care of him,” she added, saying there are dozens of other similar cases of babies found under the rubble.” It is getting harder for the nurses there to take care of the babies, although it is not for lack of trying. The hospital is struggling under serious shortages of essential supplies, including things as basic as the soap needed for hand sanitisation.