11:22 a.m. ET, November 21, 2023
Israeli attacks hit northern Gaza as crippled hospitals continue to admit patients
By Kareem Khadder and Abeer Salman Smoke rises in Gaza as Israeli attacks continue on November 21st. Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images
Wounded men, women and children were taken to hospitals in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalya area in the northern Gaza Strip, Portal videos shot on Tuesday show.
“They destroyed our houses over our heads, we thought we were safe,” an unidentified woman said at a hospital, according to Portal.
The Israel Defense Forces said early Tuesday that the Israeli Air Force was “preparing the battlefield” by focusing on “terror targets” in Jabalya.
“During the battle, the division struck three tunnel shafts in the Jabalya area where terrorists were hiding,” the IDF said.
A resident of the nearby Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, Yasser Abu Watfa, told CNN that conditions in Jabalya were “scary,” but many people living there had not been evacuated.
Gaza’s worsening health crisis: Doctors at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza continued to work despite fuel, electricity, food and water shortages while Israeli tanks surrounded the building, according to a post from the hospital.
“The situation is very dangerous and difficult, the occupation tanks, military vehicles and occupation soldiers are stationed near the Indonesian hospital and the civilian population in the hospital is in fear and terror,” journalist Anas Al-Sharif said at the hospital, told CNN.
“The bodies are piled on top of each other in the hospital, the smell of death is everywhere,” said Al-Sharif.
Large plumes of smoke rose from Gaza early Tuesday as early morning strikes continued, according to live video feeds. Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip as it targets Hamas infrastructure and fighters.
More on strikes in Gaza: The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on X, formerly Twitter, reported that four doctors were killed in the Israeli shelling of Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabalya area. The hospital will be evacuated and the wounded will be taken to Kamal Edwan Hospital, said journalist Issam Badr.
CNN is seeking comment from the IDF on possible shelling near Al-Awda.
Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip, said the health sector in the north had “completely collapsed.”
“The hospitals in northern Gaza are all completely closed and there is no medical care in the north,” he said.