Crescent International
The Israeli occupation army has surrounded Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza with tanks and snipers as this report is being compiled.
The largest medical complex in Gaza comprising three specialised facilities: surgical, internal medicine, and obstetrics and gynaecology, Al-Shifa is being turned into a morgue.
It has patients and new-born babies in incubators as well as thousands of Palestinian families displaced from their homes by relentless Israeli bombardment.
The hospital is being targeted and is under threat of bombing and destruction.
Israel has already bombed the entrance to the hospital and two days ago, several ambulances were attacked by Israeli missiles killing 15 injured people that were being transported.
The ambulances carrying injured patients were on their way to the Rafah Crossing to take them to Egypt for treatment.
Instead, Israeli planes bombed the road the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances were travelling on, forcing them to return.
As the ambulances arrived near the entrance to Al-Shifa hospital, Israeli planes bombed them killing the injured Palestinian civilians.
Now, Israeli occupation forces have surrounded Al-Shifa Hospital with tanks and snipers are shooting anyone who comes in their site.
The zionist war criminals allege that Hamas has a command centre under the hospital, an accusation the hospital’s director has rejected as “utter lies”.
Israel has peddled other lies, like the “beheading of 40 Israeli babies”, or the “killing of civilians” by Hamas.
All have been debunked by Israeli sources themselves but that has not prevented the pro-Israeli western media and politicians from repeating them.
Al-Shifa Hospital Director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya was quoted as saying that the medical complex was cut off from the outside world and under Israeli fire.
Gaza’s health ministry director, Monir al-Barsh said “any moving object” around al-Shifa Hospital is a target for the Israeli forces.
The number of dead is so high that it has led to plans to dig a mass grave within the hospital premises.
“We cannot move within or outside the perimeter of the hospital. We are surrounded, we cannot bury our dead.
“We are going to create a mass grave within the hospital compound,” al-Barsh said.
In addition to Al Shifa Hospital, al Quds Hospital is also being targeted. Israeli forces are within metres of the hospital and firing tank shells at the building.
Al Nasr hospital and Al Rantisi Pediatric hospital in northern Gaza are also being attacked, according to a CNN report.
Doctors and medical staff say that they will be killed any minute together with thousands of civilians that have sought shelter there.
Targeting hospitals, schools and residential buildings constitute war crimes.
Israeli political and military rulers are guilty of heinous crimes and must be held accountable for perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have shut down due of lack of electricity and medicines.
Gaza’s Deputy Health Minister Dr. Youssef Abu Alreesh, currently inside al-Shifa Hospital as it comes under heavy fire from Israeli forces, spoke to Al Jazeera.
Here are his translated comments reported by the Qatari channel:
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson of Gaza’s Health Ministry, says the displaced people, wounded, and medical staff inside al-Shifa Hospital are suffering due to the lack of food and water.
The situation is worsened by the power blackout, with fear also spreading due to the heavy gunfire by the Israeli forces, he added.
“We are besieged inside al-Shifa Medical Complex,” al-Qudra said.
Inflicting collective punishment on innocent civilians also constitutes a war crime.
Israeli rulers are guilty of genocide, collective punishment and ethnic cleansing.
Western rulers are complicit in Israeli war crimes.
