Israeli soldiers, conducting a raid on Gaza’s Al-Chifa hospital for the fourth day in a row, ordered the evacuation “in an hour” over a loudspeaker, an AFP journalist at the scene reported on Saturday.
• Also read: Hamas regrets that 80 people died in two attacks on a refugee camp
• Also read: The largest hospital in the Gaza Strip was evacuated of its residents
There are currently 2,300 patients, caregivers and displaced people in the facility, according to the United Nations, and international concern about their fate is growing. Israel assures that Hamas, which is in power in Gaza, uses this facility as a military base.
The AFP journalist present at the hospital heard the news in Arabic early in the morning.
The Israeli army also called the hospital’s director, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, and demanded “the evacuation of the patients, the wounded, the displaced and the nursing staff and that everyone go on foot to the seafront promenade” that borders the hospital west of Gaza City , within an hour this chief doctor contacted AFP.
For days, Israeli soldiers have been entering Al-Khifa services to question people present there and searching the medical complex, the largest in the Gaza Strip, “house by building,” according to the Israeli army.
The hospital director had already rejected an evacuation order received by telephone this week, citing in particular the complexity of the operation.
The electricity has stopped working there for several days, and department heads report that several dozen patients have died “because vital medical equipment stopped working due to the power outage.”
Most hospitals in Gaza are running out of fuel to power their generators.
On Friday, Israel’s War Cabinet approved the entry of two fuel tankers into the Gaza Strip daily.
But aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip remain suspended precisely because of a lack of fuel to transport it to the Palestinian territories, according to the UN, which fears an “imminent risk of famine” for the 2.4 million residents trapped in the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which has been at war since October 7th.
That day, the Palestinian Islamist movement launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. In retaliation, the Israeli army has been bombing the Gaza Strip relentlessly, leaving at least 12,000 dead, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
In recent days, Israeli tanks have increased their hold on Gaza City, particularly its hospitals, particularly Al-Chifa, which Hamas accuses of using it as a military base, something the Islamist movement denies.