About 130 people sheltering in a Palestinian Red Crescent building in northern Gaza, including injured people, are in danger due to sustained fire from the Israeli army “besieging” the site, the aid agency warned on Thursday.
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“The occupying forces (Israel, editor's note) continue to besiege the Jabaliya ambulance center,” the Red Crescent said in a statement. “Heavy artillery fire continues around the center, accompanied by shots from Israeli snipers.”
According to this source, 127 people, including rescuers, volunteers and their families, are at risk from these shots, including 22 injured people who are being treated there.
When contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not initially comment on this information.
The war between Israel and Hamas, which entered its 76th day on Thursday, has left most hospitals out of service, particularly in the north of the area under Israeli fire.
Hundreds of patients died from their injuries at Al-Chifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the region, and other facilities in the north that were also closed, Hamas Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidreh said on Thursday.
“The attack by Israeli occupation forces on the health system in Gaza is taking the most sadistic forms,” said Francesca Albanese, United Nations rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, on X Busy.
“Hospitals and medical staff are sacred,” she added, denouncing a “senseless war against the people of Gaza.”
Israel says the Hamas movement, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007, has established infrastructure and hospital command centers in the area.
Israel declared war on Hamas in response to the Islamist movement's unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures.
According to Hamas, the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip caused 20,000 deaths.