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The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Israel rightly condemned Iran's strike on one of its hospitals, but what about the ones it struck in Gaza?
On Thursday morning, Israel 's Soroka Hospital in Beersheba was hit by Iranian missiles, sustaining 'extensive damage'. Israeli officials understandably condemned the attack. But they appeared to be shocked – as if they had not seen a hospital being struck in the past two years when, in fact, Israel had struck all of Gaza's hospitals, sustaining complete or partial damage. The healthcare system in the Palestinian enclave is collapsing, with more deaths and injuries mounting every day. As things stand, at least 55,700 people have been killed and 130,100 wounded since October 7, 2023. Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sharren Haskel, called for 'the world to speak out' about Iran's attack. 'Deliberate. Criminal. Civilian target,' she said. She is right. It was, after all, a civilian target. But Israel did not hold itself to the same standard when it struck Al Shifa hospital in April last year, Al Ahli Arab hospital in April this year, the European hospital in May and Al Nasser hospital in February 2024, to name a few examples. On every occasion, it claimed to have evidence that the facilities were being used by Hamas or other armed groups in Gaza. So, what would happen if Iran did the same – claiming that the Soroka hospital was housing people who posed a threat to it? Would that be considered enough to justify its attack? Would the West suddenly support Iran's 'right to defend itself', regardless of how it does it? All hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law and should never be attacked. The wounded and the sick inside the facilities, as well as their medical staff, employees and ambulances all fall under protected status. From Sudan to Palestine and Israel – everybody should be held to the same standard under IHL and be guided by the collective global moral compass that bans harm to civilians, keeps hospitals out of harm's way and restricts war to within the confines of international law. Unfortunately, however, that is not how Israel has taught the world it could be done.
The National
12-06-2025
- Health
- The National
Gaza's last major hospital faces imminent shutdown as fuel runs out
In the heart of war-torn Gaza, Al Shifa Hospital stands alone. It had been one of many medical centres providing treatment and hope during Israel's devastating bombardment of the enclave, but Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital and Al Awda Hospital have all been forced out of service. Al Shifa is now the last fully operating major hospital in Gaza. But the burden of treating the injured could soon become too much. 'We are performing the work of all the hospitals that have collapsed,' Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al Shifa in Gaza city, told The National. 'Our hospital was built to accommodate 140 beds. Today, we are treating over 350 patients. Most of them are lying in the corridors, in the courtyards, wherever there's floor space.' The surge in patients intensifies the pressure on a healthcare system on the brink. Inside Al Shifa, rooms meant for five patients now house more than 10. Emergency wards are overflowing. Every day, new patients, many injured in shootings near aid distribution sites, arrive in waves that overwhelm exhausted staff. But it is not only space that is running out. Medication and surgical supplies are vanishing too. 'For more than three months, not a single pill has entered Gaza,' Dr Abu Salmiya said. 'We are out of everything, drugs for surgery, painkillers, antibiotics, emergency medicine. We are treating patients without the tools we need. It is an impossible situation.' The hospital now faces most serious shortage of all. "The fuel we have can only last for a few more days,' he added. 'Yesterday, we received a small delivery, barely enough for three days. "We have appealed to the World Health Organisation, to UNDP [UN Development Programme], to anyone who can hear us. Without fuel, we will lose everyone.' The hospital desperately needs fuel to produce electricity. Without it, its generators will stop, killing patients. 'If the generators go silent, the 13 ICU patients on ventilators will die," Dr Abu Salmiya said. "Eighteen premature babies in incubators will die. The lab will shut down. And 350 kidney dialysis patients will have their treatment stopped. Their lives will be in immediate danger.' The hospital will also be forced to suspend surgical services. 'A hospital without power isn't a hospital,' he added. Across the enclave, humanitarian supplies including food and medicine are trickling in, while the healthcare system gasps for breath. But patients continue to seek help at Al Shifa. 'We're watching people die not from wounds, but from the failure of the system around them,' Dr Abu Salmiya said. 'It is no longer just war, it is the collapse of life itself.'
Al Bawaba
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Al Bawaba
Dozens killed in Gaza since morning as Israeli strikes hit homes, aid seekers
ALBAWABA- Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip killed at least 21 Palestinians on Sunday, the third day of Eid al-Adha, as airstrikes, drone shelling, and gunfire continued to batter the region, according to medical sources and local reports. Also Read On its way to Gaza, the freedom flotilla faces unseen challenges Among the dead were six Palestinians gunned down near aid distribution centers, including four west of Rafah and one near the Wadi Gaza bridge, where large crowds had gathered in desperate hope of receiving humanitarian assistance. A source at Al-Shifa Hospital confirmed eight deaths in Jabalia al-Balad in northern Gaza following an Israeli airstrike that also destroyed a residential building. Rescue teams recovered the bodies from the rubble. The same town was targeted again when Israeli forces detonated an explosives-laden robot in a densely populated area. In the south, homes were bombed in Abasan Al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis, while drone fire injured civilians, including displaced persons sheltering in tents in the Al-Mawasi area. Also Read Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe shot at campaign event Hospital officials reported that at least 11 Palestinians were killed on Sunday alone, and dozens more were injured, marking another bloody day in a war that has now lasted nearly 20 months. According to health sources, the death toll during the three days of Eid has risen into the hundreds, with women, children, and the elderly making up the majority of the victims. What should have been a time of celebration has turned into a deepening tragedy for Gaza's population. The ongoing Israeli campaign has, to date, killed and wounded over 170,000 people, roughly 8% of Gaza's population, leaving little untouched by grief.
CTV News
04-06-2025
- CTV News
U.S. vetoes UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire
A Palestinian woman mourns as she embraces the body of her daughter Mayar Abu Odeh, 8, who was killed in an Israeli army strike on Gaza. at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, June 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Sky News
16-05-2025
- General
- Sky News
How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign
A wave of deadly strikes in northern Gaza has marked a significant escalation in Israel's offensive. The Israeli military (IDF) says it has struck "over 150 terror targets" across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours - an average of one airstrike every ten minutes. At least 109 people have been killed in the strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total number killed this week to 284. That number may rise further. On Friday morning, the director of Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that more than 250 people had been killed in the previous 36 hours alone. 3:27 The impact of this new bombardment is cataclysmic, as this video of an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, verified by Sky News, shows. Other videos show huge smoke clouds rising from airstrikes on residential neighbourhoods surrounding the city's Indonesian Hospital. The hospital's director, Dr Marwan al Sultan, told Sky News: "There is a shortage of everything except death." Among those killed in Jabalia on Friday was 42-year old Yahya Shehab, a nurse for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF). He was killed alongside his wife Tamara, 37, and their five children: Sarah, 18, Anas, 16, Maryam, 14, Aya, 12 and Abdul, 11. He is survived by his niece Huda, 27, a civil engineer, who lives nearby with her husband Ahmad Ngat, 31, and their two young sons, Mohammed, seven, and Yusuf, four. Ahmad remembers Yahya as kind and generous, and that he would use his skills as a nurse to treat Mohammed and Yusuf whenever they were sick. "His kids were great too," Ahmad says. "May God have mercy on them." Operation Gideon Chariot An Israeli official said Friday's strikes were preparatory actions in the lead-up to a larger operation. Earlier this month, Israel's security cabinet approved "Operation Gideon Chariot" - a plan to "capture" all of Gaza and force its entire population to move to a small enclave in the southern Gaza Strip. At the time, a defence official said the operation would go ahead if no hostage deal was reached by the end of US President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East. That visit ended on Friday, 16 May. 👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈 Hamas had proposed releasing all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war. Last month, Hamas turned down Israel's offer of a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the militant group laying down its weapons and releasing half the living hostages. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who sits in the security cabinet, said of Operation Gideon Chariot that Gaza would be "entirely destroyed", and that its population will "leave in great numbers to third countries". 2:12 Ahmad says he is ready to leave Gaza with his family at the earliest opportunity. "We want to live our lives," he says. His wife Huda grieving the loss of her uncle Yahya, is seven months pregnant. The family are constantly struggling to find enough food for her and the children, he says. "Unfortunately, she suffers greatly," Ahmad says. "She developed gestational diabetes during this pregnancy." Israel has prevented the entry of all food, fuel and water since 2 March. On Monday, a UN-backed report warned that one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation. Satellite imagery may show new aid hubs Under new proposals backed by the US, Israel now intends to control the distribution of aid via private military contractors. The proposals, set to start operating by the end of May, would see aid distributed from militarised compounds in four locations around the Gaza Strip. Satellite imagery from recent weeks shows Israel has constructed four compounds which could be used for aid distribution. Construction began in April and was completed by early May. Three of these are clustered together in the southwest corner of the Gaza Strip, with one in the central Netzarim corridor. None are located in northern Gaza, where Ahmad and Huda's family live. The UN has called this a "deliberate attempt to weaponise" aid distribution and has refused to participate. The planned aid distribution system is being coordinated by a new non-profit, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up in February in Switzerland. Its board includes a former head of World Central Kitchen, as well as people with close ties to the US military and private military contractors. Proposals drawn up by the GHF say the four planned aid distribution sites could feed around 1.2 million people, approximately 60% of Gaza's population. The GHF later requested that Israel establish additional distribution points. Speaking to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN Relief chief Tom Fletcher said the plan "makes starvation a bargaining chip". "It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement," he said. Large areas of Gaza have already been razed in recent weeks, including vast tracts of the southern city of Rafah, where many had fled during the war's early stages. Sky News analysis of satellite imagery shows approximately two-thirds of Rafah's built-up area (66%) has been reduced entirely to rubble, with buildings across much of the rest of the city showing signs of severe damage. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch executive director Federico Borello said the UK and US have a duty, under the Genocide Convention, to "stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza". He said: "Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza's two million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington." Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Friday that Israel's new offensive is intended to secure the release of its hostages. "Our objective is to get them home and get Hamas to relinquish power," he said.
