The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced on the “X” platform that the largest hospital in Gaza had stopped working, and that health workers at Al-Shifa Hospital described the situation there as “horrific and dangerous” with continued shooting and bombing. “It is unfortunate that the number of patient deaths has increased significantly,” Ghebreyesus said in his tweet, adding that the Shifa Complex “is no longer operating as a hospital anymore.” Al-Shifa Complex and other hospitals are subject to a stifling Israeli siege, and Israel says that Hamas has command centers under and near the hospitals.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said on Sunday that the largest hospital in Gaza has stopped working, and that deaths among patients are on the rise, as the violent Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, continues.

The WHO director said the organization was able to speak to health workers at Al-Shifa Hospital, who described the “horrific and dangerous” situation with continuous shooting and shelling exacerbating already critical conditions.

“It is unfortunate that the number of patient deaths has increased dramatically,” he said in a post on the X website, adding that Al-Shifa “no longer functions as a hospital.”

Tedros joined other senior UN officials in calling for an immediate ceasefire.

"The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, turn into scenes of death, destruction and despair," he said.

Israeli forces are besieging hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, including the Shifa complex. Medical staff members said that hospitals are barely able to care for those inside them, with three newborns dying in Al-Shifa Hospital, while more are facing danger in light of the power outage amid fierce fighting in the area surrounding the hospital.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters who launched deadly attacks in southern Israel on October 7, adding that the movement has command centers under and near hospitals.

Israel says it is trying to release more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas fighters on October 7, and says hospitals must be evacuated.

Shelling continues around hospitals

The bombing and battles continued in the vicinity of Gaza hospitals on Sunday between Hamas and the Israeli army, which is trying to penetrate the neighborhoods of the northern Gaza Strip, threatening the lives of thousands of people stranded in health facilities and forcing other hospitals to evacuate patients who are now “in the streets without medical care,” according to a local official.

Other areas in the Gaza Strip are being subjected to Israeli bombing, some of them in the south, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have arrived over the past days, and it is difficult for them to find shelter, food, medicine and water under a siege imposed by Israel in response to an attack launched by Hamas against it on October 7, which killed about 1,200 Israelis.

The Hamas government announced on Sunday that 11,180 Palestinians were killed in the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, including 4,609 children and 3,100 women, in addition to the injury of 28,200 people.

Hamas Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Yousef Abu Al-Rish, announced that Israel had “completely destroyed the heart department building in Al-Shifa Hospital,” where tens of thousands of displaced, wounded, and sick people were still stranded.

Abu Al-Rish said that "five infants" and "seven patients in intensive care" died due to a power outage in the largest hospital in Gaza, adding, "We expect the number of martyrs to double."

According to him, “650 patients, about forty children in incubators, all of them threatened with death, and 15,000 displaced people” are in this hospital.

The hospital announced that nurses were resorting to manual artificial respiration to keep the infants alive, while a doctor from Doctors Without Borders indicated that 17 patients were in the intensive care department.

Witnesses inside the hospital confirmed that there had been a raid, which the French news agency could not independently verify.

The Israeli army had previously denied deliberately targeting the hospital, but it repeated the accusation that Hamas used the medical facilities as its headquarters and military infrastructure, which the movement denies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out in an interview with CNN that about 100 patients were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital.

The director of Al-Shifa Complex, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, warned that “medical teams are unable to work, and the bodies in the dozens cannot be dealt with or buried.”

Source: (France 24 / AFP / Reuters)