Gaza’s main hospital collapsed on Saturday as Israeli forces surrounded it and a power outage led to the deaths of a premature baby in an incubator and at least four other patients, according to Gaza’s hospital director and Ministry of Health.
Without fuel to run its generators, Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is plunged into darkness and its medical equipment is no longer functioning. For weeks – as Israel has cut off supplies of fuel and electricity – the hospital has been relying on backup generators and a dwindling fuel supply.
“Operations had to be stopped,” said the hospital’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya. “Kidney dialysis has been stopped and the neonatal unit is in a very dire situation. A baby died due to lack of oxygen, electricity and heat.”
Medical staff had to provide manual artificial ventilation for many hours on some patients in the intensive care unit after the failure shut down ventilators, said Medhat Abbas, the director general of Gaza’s Health Ministry.
In recent days, the Israeli ground offensive has pushed deeper into Gaza City, slowly closing in on the hospitals that have sheltered tens of thousands. Israel says the hospitals shield Hamas’ military operations in the tunnels below.
In Al-Shifa, thousands of critically ill and wounded patients and displaced people are trapped inside as Israeli tanks and troops surround the compound and snipers occasionally fire shots, according to the Health Ministry, doctors and some witnesses hiding inside.
There is intense hand-to-hand fighting nearby between Israeli troops and fighters from Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that controls Gaza.
The Israeli military has repeatedly called on patients and people staying in hospitals in Gaza City to evacuate to the south, away from the urban fighting. Four hospitals in the city were evacuated on Friday.
But some of those who tried to leave Al-Shifa on Saturday, including a family, were fired upon by snipers they believed were Israelis, and at least one person was killed, as were several people at Al-Shifa hospital , including Dr. Abu Salmiya.
On Saturday, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, denied that Israeli forces had laid siege to Al-Shifa and said troops were creating a safe passage for people to evacuate along the eastern side of the hospital compound. He said Israeli troops would not attack the hospital itself, but confirmed that Israel was fighting Hamas militants “who choose to fight next to Al-Shifa Hospital.”
In Al-Shifa, dozens more premature babies are lying in incubators that no longer work, Dr. Nasser Bulbul, head of the hospital’s premature and neonatal department.
Patients treated at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Friday.Credit: Khader Al Zanoun/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
“We have to move the babies in blankets and sheets to another building,” he said, where there was some electricity for the incubators. He added that it was even dangerous to move from one building to another within the medical complex.
Admiral Hagari said Saturday evening that the Israeli military would help transfer babies from Al-Shifa, but the hospital director said there were no plans to do so.
“The staff of Shifa Hospital has asked that we help the babies in the children’s ward go to a safer hospital tomorrow,” Admiral Hagari said at a televised news conference. “We will provide the necessary help.”
“These words are completely wrong,” said Dr. Abu Salmiya afterwards. There is no safer hospital or such coordination, he said.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Red Crescent warned that Al-Quds Hospital, another major hospital in Gaza City, was at risk of closure because it was running out of fuel to run generators. The hospital has 500 patients, the Red Crescent said.
Israeli tanks and military vehicles surrounded the Al-Quds Hospital and shelled the building, the Red Crescent said.
Mahmoud Abu Harbed, a resident of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, has been in Al-Shifa hospital for more than a month. He said Saturday that his home was hit by Israeli airstrikes early in the war, injuring his brother, and that they fled to the hospital for treatment and shelter.
“Everyone is standing on top of each other, displaced people, wounded people, even the medical staff,” he said. “They try to save this person or that person, but they don’t succeed. There is no electricity, medicine or anything like that,” he added.
“People are afraid, but we pray that God will protect us.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
—Raja Abdulrahim and Ameera Harouda