The Israeli occupation bombed a house near the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, causing dead and wounded. At the same time, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced, on Friday evening, December 8, 2023, that the death toll had risen since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Strip. 17,487 dead and 46,480 injured, noting that during the past hours alone 313 Palestinians were murdered.

Ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said in a statement posted on the Telegram platform: “Only 313 killed and 558 injured arrived at hospitals during the past hours, and a large number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads.”

He added that thus the toll rises “since the start of the Israeli aggression to 17,487 martyrs and 46,480 injured,” pointing out that 70 percent of the victims are women and children.

Al-Qudra warned that "the health situation in the south is extremely catastrophic, and hospitals have lost their capacity in departments and intensive care, and the occupancy in them has reached 262%."

He stressed that "the Israeli occupation is still arresting 36 health personnel from the Gaza Strip, led by the Director General of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salamiya, in harsh and inhumane conditions."

Al-Qudra called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Health Organization to take immediate action to release the health personnel detained by the Israeli occupation forces.

He continued, "The Israeli occupation is carrying out genocide crimes in schools (against the displaced), sweeping residential neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip, and putting hospitals out of service."

Regarding the wounded leaving Gaza, Al-Qudra pointed out that “618 people (407 wounded and 211 sick) left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land border crossing with Egypt.”

He explained that "less than 1% of the wounded were able to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing, and we lose dozens of wounded every day as a result of the lack of treatment and the delay in their exit from Gaza."

Al-Qudra called on "international institutions to intervene urgently to provide protection, medicines and fuel to the Al-Shifa Medical Complex (west of Gaza City) and hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip in order to enable medical teams to restart them and save the wounded and sick."

He also called on "all parties to provide safe humanitarian corridor in order to ensure the flow of medical supplies and fuel and the exit of hundreds of wounded daily."

Al-Qudra continued: “We call on the medical teams in northern Gaza to go to the Shifa Medical Complex and the hospitals they can reach in order to save the wounded and sick.”

He appealed to "medical staff, retirees, graduates and students from all health specialties to go immediately to work at the Nasser Medical Complex and the Gaza European Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip to rescue the wounded."

Since last October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war and a stifling siege on all parts of the Gaza Strip, causing massive infrastructure destruction and an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to official Palestinian and UN sources.