Director of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza says facility was stormed by Israeli army
Al-Ahli hospital, located in Gaza City, one of the last still in operation in the north of the Palestinian enclave, stopped functioning on Tuesday after being stormed by the Israeli army , affirmed its director, doctor Fadel Naïm, to Agence France-Presse.
According to the latter, the Israeli army besieged the hospital, arrested several doctors, nurses and wounded, and destroyed part of the compound. “The intrusion of the occupying army put the hospital out of service. We cannot accommodate patients or injured people”he added, affirming that four people injured on Monday by Israeli fire, while they were in the hospital, succumbed to their wounds on Tuesday.
The humanitarian situation, already catastrophic, continues to worsen in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombings, according to relief organizations operating there. Shortages of water, electricity and food remain glaring, despite the arrival of humanitarian aid. The territory’s health ecosystem is thus greatly destabilized with less than a third of hospitals still operational, and only partially, according to the UN.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that Al-Ahli Hospital was receiving “critical patients” from the nearby Al-Shifa Hospital “for surgical procedures”. Al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital complex in the Gaza Strip, is only functioning at a minimum and with a very small team, after being targeted in November by a large-scale operation by the Israeli army, which accuses Hamas of using it as a command center.