to report «iusnews»; Speaking at a press briefing outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Health Ministry Spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra stated on Friday that seven main hospitals and 21 health centres are now out of service.
Forty-six members of medical teams have been killed and 23 ambulances were completely destroyed, he said, Al-Jazeera reported.
“What’s going on in the Gaza Strip is a big massacre against our Palestinian people, against the Muslims and Christians … Israel is undoubtedly going to commit more massacres and the international world is witnessing [this],” he said.
He said 4,137 people have been killed so far in Israeli attacks on Gaza including 1,661 children. There are 13,260 people wounded, Al-Qudra added.
“Operations are being done on the floor, on the ground, in the corridors of the hospital,” he said.
Meanwhile, a top relief agency official said a shortage of fuel, water and electricity is leaving hospitals in Gaza “unfunctional” and in some cases “out of service”.
The fuel scarcity is causing Gaza residents to resort to using contaminated water as most of the water is not drinkable because it needs treatment units for processing, which requires fuel, CARE West Bank and Gaza Country Director Hiba Tibi told CNN in an interview on Friday.
“We need fuel to transport the clean water to the population. All of that is getting very complicated,” Tibi said, adding, “The most important thing for us is to ensure that we have access to fuel, for hospitals and water treatment units in Gaza.”
“If we have water and electricity and fuel, specifically to generate these two main important necessities, the situation might look better ... to allow for saving lives,” Tibi added.
Over 60% of primary care facilities are shut down, and hospitals in Gaza are on the brink of collapse due to the shortage of power, medicine, equipment and specialized personnel, according to a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Thursday.
OHCA added that people are increasingly consuming water from unsafe sources, risking death and placing the population at risk of an infectious disease outbreak.
On October 7, Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched the largest military operation against the occupying entity in decades, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. The resistance movement said that its operation came in response to Israel’s violations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Al-Quds and growing settler violence.
Israel responded with intensive airstrikes on civilian targets in the Gaza Strip. The regime has also intensified the siege of Gaza, leaving the city, home to more than 2.3 million Palestinians, without water, electricity, fuel and internet.
