“Medical personnel will stay within the hospital to assist sufferers who’re unable to evacuate,” the Israeli navy mentioned in an announcement, including that it had supplied “extra meals, water and humanitarian help” to Al-Shifa in a single day.
It was not instantly clear what number of sufferers, workers members or Israeli troopers remained within the complicated. Munir al-Bursh, an official with the Gazan Well being Ministry, mentioned in an announcement that at the least 120 sufferers and 5 docs had been inside.
A few of those that have left hospitals within the north in current weeks have ended up on the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, within the south, the place households have been sleeping in crowded corridors and employees have been scrambling to deal with sufferers amid a scarcity of beds, in accordance with Dr. Saleh Al-Hamase, the hospital’s head of nursing.
Dozens of wounded individuals went to the hospital after an almost 16-mile journey from Al-Shifa final week, many on foot and a few in wheelchairs, Dr. Al-Hamase mentioned. Solely probably the most extreme circumstances had been despatched in ambulances, he mentioned.
The hospital was making ready on Saturday to obtain 200 extra sufferers from Al-Shifa, Dr. Al-Hamase mentioned.
“We’re days away from working out of gasoline and collapsing,” he mentioned. “The scenes on the hospital are tragic, and the bombardment round us is steady.”
Israeli troopers seized the Al-Shifa hospital complicated on Wednesday, saying that it hosted an underground Hamas command heart. Each the Palestinian armed group and Al-Shifa officers have denied the accusation.
Israeli troops say they’ve discovered weapons caches within the complicated and, close to the hospital, the our bodies of two Israeli hostages captured by Hamas throughout its Oct. 7 assaults in southern Israel.
On Thursday, the Israeli navy escorted journalists from The New York Instances to Al-Shifa to see a stone-and-concrete shaft with a staircase descending into the earth — proof, the navy mentioned, of a Hamas presence there. However the military has but to supply conclusive proof of a subterranean navy base.
The departures from Al-Shifa got here because the Israeli navy, having claimed management of northern Gaza, signaled plans to increase its offensive towards Hamas into the south, the place a whole lot of hundreds of civilians have fled in current weeks within the hopes of escaping pounding airstrikes and widespread destruction.
At the same time as Israel continued to inform civilians to flee south for their very own security, the Israeli navy’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, mentioned late Friday that its troops would proceed operations “in each place that Hamas is, and it’s within the south of the strip.”
His assertion appeared to telegraph a brand new part within the struggle, three weeks into Israel’s floor invasion.
