WARNING: This story contains disturbing images
The director of the largest hospital in Gaza is calling on Israel, the U.S. and Egypt to evacuate the newborns from the facility, as fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants outside has prompted thousands of people to flee.
Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiah said there are three dozen babies in the neonatal unit who need to be evacuated from the sprawling Al-Shifa Hospital, which is without fuel.
“If we cannot evacuate them immediately … all 36 babies will die,” he told CBC News on Monday. A 37th died Sunday, he said.
Israel’s military said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies. Abu Salmiah said he hasn’t heard from the military Sunday or so far on Monday.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity that has supported Shifa’s neonatal intensive care unit for years, on Sunday questioned the feasibility of a move.
“The transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process,” CEO Melanie Ward said in a statement. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital … and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely.”
Featured VideoPalestinian and UN officials say Gaza’s largest hospital is no longer in operation. The director of Al-Shifa Hospital says the facility is out of fuel, leading to the deaths of patients including babies, as Israel and Hamas blame each other for the situation.
Abu Salmiah said the hospital, which is treating more than 600 patients, recently received 300 litres of fuel brought to the hospital by the International Committee of the Red Cross, but Al-Shifa needs 10,000 litres of fuel a day. Israel has claimed Hamas militants kept staff from the fuel, but Abu Salmiah said the hospital used it in a generator.
The hospital is also out of oxygen, he said.
“Today seven people died in ICU because there is no oxygen for them, and we wait for another day [of] dying every hour because we don’t have any source of oxygen in the hospital.”
Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave, including the Al-Shifa complex, are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, according to medical staff.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the strip’s second largest hospital, Al-Quds, was also out of service, with staff struggling to care for those already there with little medicine, food and water.
Israel says Hamas has command centres near hospital
Israel says it is homing in on Palestinian Hamas militants who launched deadly attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, and that the group has command centres under and near the hospitals.
Battles around hospitals have forced thousands of Palestinians to flee from some of the last shelters in northern Gaza while stranding critically wounded patients and their caregivers with dwindling supplies and no electricity, health officials said Monday.
The Israeli military has urged Palestinians to flee south on foot through what it calls safe corridors. But its purported drive to separate civilians from Hamas militants has meant more than two-thirds of the territory’s population of 2.3 million have already fled their homes.
Both sides have seized on the plight of hospitals, particularly Shifa’s, as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week. The fighting was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 surprise attack into Israel, and Israel’s response has brought unseen levels of death and destruction to Gaza.
Thousands of people displaced by airstrikes that have destroyed entire city blocks have sought shelter in Shifa’s darkened corridors. Doctors running low on supplies perform surgery there on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia. One medic shared a photo showing nine premature babies in a shared crib.
Concerns include patients on dialysis
Dr. Marwan Abusada, chief of surgery at the hospital, told CBC News Network that the newborns do not have their mothers with them. Five of them lost their families in the bombardments, he said.
He also said hundreds of patients who get dialysis at Al-Shifa are at risk of dying.
He said there is no food or water, and the lack of electricity means no refrigeration, even though dozens of bodies in the hospital have yet to be buried.
“The tanks are in front of the hospital,” Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, another surgeon, told Reuters. “We are under full blockade. It’s a totally civilian area — only hospital facility, hospital patients, doctors and other civilians staying in the hospital. Someone should stop this,” a surgeon at the hospital.
“They bombed the [water] tanks, they bombed the water wells, they bombed the oxygen pump as well. They bombed everything in the hospital. So we are hardly surviving. We tell everyone, the hospital is no more a safe place for treating patients. We are harming patients by keeping them here.”
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said an Israeli tank was now stationed at the hospital gate. Israeli snipers and drones were firing into the hospital, making it impossible for medics and patients to move around, he said.
“We are besieged and are inside a circle of death.”
Israel says Hamas shields itself among civilians and the hospital is a prime example of that, claiming the militants have a command centre in and beneath the medical compound. Israel has not provided photos or videos to back up the Shifa claims, though it has shared footage of militants operating in residential neighbourhoods and positioning rockets and weapons near schools and mosques.
Both Hamas and the hospital staff at Shifa deny the Israeli allegations.
About 2,500 Palestinians still sheltering in hospitals
A UN health official said many displaced families and patients with moderate injuries fled the hospital over the weekend. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said most remaining patients could only be relocated with ambulances and other special procedures.
Mohammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said those who remain include about 650 patients, 500 medical staff and around 2,500 displaced Palestinians sheltering inside hospital buildings. That’s down from more than 20,000 people reported to be at the hospital on Saturday by the Health Ministry.
More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing.
Health officials, many of whom work out of Shifa, have not updated that toll since Friday because of the difficulty of collecting information.
Featured VideoMore than 230 people with Canadian ties made it through the Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt Sunday, Canadian officials said. It’s the largest contingent yet, but many more are still waiting to get out.
At least 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Palestinian militants are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid, including men, women, children and older adults. The military says 44 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.
About 250,000 Israelis have left communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israel and the Hezbollah militant group have repeatedly traded fire, including on Monday.