“The destruction of hospitals in Gaza is becoming intolerable and must stop. The lives of thousands of civilians, patients and medical staff are at risk,” said William Schomburg, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Subsidiary Mission. ) in Gaza, in a statement.
The ICRC urgently calls for the respect and safety of medical facilities, patients and health professionals in Gaza.
“Overloaded, undersupplied and increasingly dangerous, Gaza’s health system has reached a point of no return, putting the lives of thousands of injured, sick and displaced people at risk,” he told the group, adding that hospitals and ambulances have been hit hard.
In recent days, teams delivering essential supplies to medical facilities in Gaza “witnessed horrific images exacerbated by the intensity of hostilities,” the ICRC said.
Since the beginning of the war, the UN and the World Health Organization (WHO) have condemned Israeli air and artillery attacks on hospitals and ambulances.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as havens for its fighters, carrying out attacks and hiding tunnels, which the Islamist movement denies.
The ICRC highlights that children’s hospitals have not been spared the violence, particularly Nasser Hospital, which has been heavily damaged by hostilities, and the dysfunctional Randisi Hospital.
Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip is “already overburdened with patients and now houses thousands of displaced families who lost their homes in the past month as a result of the conflict,” the ICRC said.
The same source recalls that any military operation carried out in the vicinity of the hospital must take into account the presence of civilians protected by international humanitarian law.
“The rules of war are clear. Hospitals are facilities specially protected by international humanitarian law,” the ICRC concludes.
Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, entered their 35th day of war today, with Israeli forces pushing into Gaza City and the northern Strip, forcing thousands of Palestinian civilians to continue their journey south.
More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the start of the war on Israeli soil on October 7, sparked by an unprecedented and violent attack by Hamas, the Islamist movement considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States. Israeli authorities.
Hamas today raised the death toll from Israeli bombings in Gaza to more than 11,000, with nearly 27,500 injured.
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