CNN –
Premature babies are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water at Gaza’s largest hospital in a desperate attempt to keep them alive in “catastrophic” conditions, the hospital director warned, as Israeli firepower bombards surrounding streets and remaining fuel reserves dry up. Leaving the facility inoperable.
Al-Shifa Hospital staff struggled to keep the newborns alive and warm after oxygen supplies were exhausted and they had to hand-transfer the babies from the neonatal unit’s incubators to another part of the hospital. Meanwhile, a reporter from the Al Arabiya network who was at the hospital told CNN that people were trapped there and were too scared to escape due to the intense fighting.
“There is no more water, food and milk for children and babies… the situation in the hospital is catastrophic,” said the director of the medical center, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told CNN on Monday.
Pictures show several newborns taken from hospital incubators and placed in a bed together.
The doctor told Al Araby TV on Sunday that several children have died in intensive care and kindergarten over the past two days as Israel relentlessly bombed and bombed the Gaza Strip, an already impoverished and densely populated area, following the October 7 attack territory blocked by Hamas fighters.
An Israeli military spokesman told CNN on Saturday that its forces were engaged in “ongoing heavy fighting” against Hamas near the hospital complex, but denied firing on the medical center in the northern Gaza Strip and rejected suggestions that Hospital is under siege.
Israel has repeatedly claimed that there is a Hamas command center beneath Al-Shifa Hospital, something Hamas and hospital officials have denied. The Israeli military has also previously accused Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure. CNN cannot independently verify the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims.
Portal
Newborns are placed in a bed after being removed from incubators at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on November 12 when oxygen supplies in the neonatal unit were exhausted.
Khader Al Zanoun/AFP/Getty Images
Thousands of displaced people attempt to seek refuge at Al-Shifa Hospital along with medical staff and patients, pictured on November 10. Many civilians are too afraid to leave the hospital given Israel’s ongoing wave of attacks.
Working by candlelight
A freelance journalist at Al-Shifa described dozens of bodies yet to be buried, ambulances unable to recover the wounded and life support systems without working electricity. Paramedics worked by candlelight, food was rationed and people inside began drinking pipe water, the journalist said late Saturday.
CNN also spoke to an Al Arabiya network reporter, Khader al Zaanoun, who is in hospital.
“Communication is very poor and it is almost impossible for us to report what is happening in the hospital and on its farms. We barely have cell phone connections, but no internet,” he said.
“No one can move or dare to leave the hospital. The staff here are aware of the many strikes taking place around the hospital. “We see smoke rising from these strikes and we know there are people in some of these buildings. But ambulances are not leaving the hospital because… in the last few days an ambulance was hit on the way out of the hospital.”
Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa, told CNN that 7,000 displaced people were desperately trying to find shelter at the Al-Shifa hospital, which houses about 1,500 patients and medical staff.
In the hospital, none of the operating rooms are functional because there is a lack of electricity, Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV, adding: “Whoever needs surgery dies and we can’t do anything for them.”
“Now the wounded come to us and we can’t give them anything other than first aid,” he said.
According to the World Health Organization, Al-Shifa has been without electricity for three days. “Regrettably, the hospital no longer functions as a hospital,” it said.
The spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said over the weekend that the intensive care unit, pediatric ward and oxygen machines were out of order.
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Al-Shifa is far from alone. On Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent announced that Al-Quds Hospital, another major facility in Gaza City, was out of service. The PRCS said the hospital – the second largest in Gaza – was “no longer operational”. This suspension of services is due to the exhaustion of available fuel and the power outage.”
Israeli airstrikes killed more than 11,000 people, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women. This is according to the latest available figures released on Friday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, whose figures come from Hamas-controlled territory.
Israel’s blockade of vital supplies, including fuel, entering the Gaza Strip has deepened a humanitarian crisis, as hospitals, water systems, bakeries and other services that rely on electricity have closed.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said on Wednesday that both Hamas and Israel had committed war crimes last month.
Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the director general of the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, said on Monday that Al-Shifa’s medical staff refused an evacuation order from the IDF because they feared about 700 patients would die if they were left behind.
“The problem is not the doctors, but the patients. And if they are left behind, they will die, and if they are moved, they will die on the way. That’s the problem, we’re talking about 700 patients,” Al-Bursh told CNN on Monday.
“There has been no response from doctors so far, but some of the displaced people and families have already left the country.”
According to Al-Bursh, the evacuation order was not coordinated with international humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross. The lack of coordination raises concerns about the safety and feasibility of transferring such a large number of patients, many of whom are in critical condition and will die during transport, he said.
CNN has asked the IDF for comment on Al-Bursh’s claim that it ordered the evacuation of the hospital.
Earlier on Monday, the IDF announced that an evacuation corridor had been reopened for residents of the northern Gaza Strip. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Sunday that the majority of people at Al-Nasr Hospital and Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, both in northern Gaza, had been evacuated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that there was “no reason” that patients could not be evacuated from Al-Shifa. Netanyahu told CNN that Israel was helping patients by setting up corridors on site, saying that “about 100” had already been evacuated from the hospital.
CNN cannot independently verify whether people were evacuated.
CNN has previously documented that Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes around evacuation zones, underscoring the reality that evacuation zones and IDF warnings have failed to ensure the safety of civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
International calls for a ceasefire are growing louder as leaders from around the world pile pressure on Israel over the rising civilian death toll and huge crowds gather in cities around the world for pro-Palestinian protests. But Netanyahu reiterated to CNN on Sunday that he would only accept a cessation of fighting “in which we release our hostages.”
The Israeli military estimates that Hamas is holding 240 hostages in Gaza, including civilian men, women and children. The militant group has released just four hostages – two elderly Israeli women and an American mother and daughter – while Israeli forces said they had rescued an Israeli soldier.
Israeli troops continued their ground operation in Gaza on Sunday by pushing deeper into Gaza City, army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a news conference. Infantry and combat engineering forces reached the edge of al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, which is near al-Shifa hospital, Hagari said. Meanwhile, army forces, in coordination with the navy, raided Gaza’s port area and are currently in areas east of it.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it had left 300 liters of fuel at the entrance to the Shifa hospital complex, but that Hamas had prevented the hospital from accepting that fuel. Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV that staff were too scared to collect it.
“We told the Israeli army that the 300 liters of fuel offered is not enough to run the hospital for 30 minutes,” Abu Salmiya told CNN. He said on Monday that the hospital had asked the IDF for 600 liters of fuel per hour to run its generators, but the IDF had not yet responded.
The IDF released a video showing soldiers delivering the canisters to a roadside location near the hospital entrance. An audio recording was also released, purportedly of a hospital official accusing a Hamas leader in the Health Ministry of refusing pickup.
Abu Salmiya said it was the presence of Israeli tanks that prevented the gathering.
“Of course, my medical team was completely afraid to go out,” he said, adding: “We want every drop of fuel, but I told (the IDF) that it should be sent through the International Red Cross or another international institution.” .”
Hamas denied the allegations and said the Israeli fuel shipment was a propaganda stunt.
This story will be updated with further developments.