ASHENEWS reports that six babies have died at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital while 37 premature babies at the hospital have been relocated without their incubators.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in its newsletters released on the Monday said that the relocation of the babies occured on Sunday night to an operating room stating that the health workers worked at heating the room.
The WHO Director General, Adhanom Ghebreyesus lamented over the way hospitals are being attacked while calling for an immediate stop of the fighting.
“The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation and despair.”
The United Nations has pointed out that humanitaians, hospitals a d medical personnel should not be targets of conflicts no matter where conflicts happen as it has pointed that these groups are specifically protected under International Humanitarian law.
In its report, the UN Humanitarian Affairs Coordination Office (OCHA) disclosed that in addition to the deceased infants, 10 other patients have died at Al-Shifa, while three nurses were killed amid bombing and armed clashes.
“Critical infrastructure, including the oxygen station, water tanks and a well, the cardiovascular facility and the maternity ward, has been damaged.
“While many internally displaced persons who were sheltering at the hospital and some staff and patients have managed to flee, others are trapped inside, fearing to leave or physically unable to do so”, OCHA said.
Other attacks on health facilities were reported over the weekend with OCHA saying that an airstrike reportedly hit and destroyed the Swedish clinic in Ash Shati camp, west of Gaza city, where some 500 displaced persons were sheltering in Saturday.
OCHA further reported that on Sunday, for the second consecutive day, following the collapse of services and communications at hospitals in northern Gaza, the Ministry of Health in the enclave did not update casualty figures.
The latest update provided on Friday showed that 11,078 people had been killed in the Strip since 7 October while according to Israeli official sources, 47 soldiers have been killed since the start of ground operations.
Hundreds of thousands of people remaining in the north are struggling to survive, OCHA said.
