Latest news with #AlAwda
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Israel forces north Gaza's last functioning hospital to close
NewsFeed Israel forces north Gaza's last functioning hospital to close Israeli forces have issued evacuation orders for five areas of northern Gaza including the Al Awda hospital. The hospital's director told Al Jazeera that Israel had threatened to kill everyone in the building if it wasn't evacuated.
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Israel orders closure of al-Awda Hospital, a ‘lifeline' in north Gaza
Israel has ordered the closure of al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, leaving health officials scrambling to relocate dozens of people who remain at the medical facility, as deadly bombardment and starvation rack the besieged enclave. At least 70 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks since the early hours of Thursday. The Gaza Health Ministry called Israel's push, which forced the hospital out of commission, a 'continuation of the violations and crimes' against the medical sector in the territory. Al-Awda was the last operating hospital in northern Gaza, according to health officials. 'The Health Ministry calls on all concerned sides to ensure protection for the health system in the Gaza Strip, as guaranteed by international and humanitarian laws,' the ministry said in a statement. The World Health Organization (WHO) said 97 people, including 13 patients, are still at the hospital. The United Nations agency is planning a mission on Friday to transfer the patients to another facility. 'Due to impassable roads, the hospital's medical equipment cannot be relocated,' WHO said in a statement. 'With Al-Awda's closure, there is no remaining functional hospital in North Gaza — severing a critical lifeline for the people there.' WHO pleaded 'for the hospital's protection and staff and patients' safety'. Israel has been besieging and bombing hospitals across Gaza, killing more than 1,400 medical workers, as well as patients and the displaced taking shelter, since the beginning of the war, according to local authorities. The closure of al-Awda Hospital comes as the humanitarian crisis becomes more catastrophic by the day in Gaza, with Israel continuing its suffocating blockade on the enclave. An effort, backed by the United States and Israel, to distribute limited food supplies at specific sites run by a shadowy organisation, known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, continued to be marred by chaos on Thursday. 'We have come a long distance, around 10km [6.2 miles] to take this box tainted with blood,' Palestinian resident Saher Abu Tahoon told Al Jazeera in central Gaza. 'We need this box because there's no food to eat. We haven't seen any food or flour in five days. We went to get food for our children from a very faraway place. I can't even carry this box because I am too tired, and I am too hungry.' Multiple explosions were heard and Israeli gunfire was reported near a distribution centre in central Gaza earlier on Friday. Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said Palestinians who walked to the newly opened aid site at the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza were unable to leave due to Israeli military activity in the area. 'Many of the people who showed up at the site are trapped right now and unable to leave the area due to the presence of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles [and] the ongoing shooting,' Mahmoud said. 'They've been sending appeals to the Red Cross to coordinate their departure from the area. It's becoming very risky for them to walk on their own.' Israel has been pushing to bypass and sideline the United Nations from the aid distribution process, a self-serving approach critics say would further weaponise humanitarian assistance in the territory. 'The problems are that the insecurity continues, and frankly, they are not making it easy for us to deliver humanitarian goods,' Dujarric said. There are 600 aid trucks on the Gaza side of the Karem Abu Salem crossing (called Kerem Shalom by Israel), but Israel has blocked the world body from retrieving the supplies for the past three days, he added. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said 'starvation is threatening the future of the children' in the Palestinian enclave. 'What's urgently needed is a political will to allow the UN and partners to provide assistance at scale without hindrance or interruption,' Lazzarini said in a post on X. 'Allow us to do our work.' Amid the dire humanitarian conditions, Israel maintained its relentless bombardment on Thursday, killing at least 70 Palestinians in attacks across Gaza, according to medical sources. The Palestinian Civil Defence said an Israeli strike on a residential building in Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City left approximately 30 people missing under the rubble. 'Due to the lack of heavy equipment, it is not possible to recover the missing individuals from under the rubble,' the Civil Defence said in a statement. 'Therefore, we call on the international community and human rights organizations for immediate and urgent intervention to protect civilians and innocent people in the Gaza Strip.' Meanwhile, Washington said that Israel has accepted a temporary ceasefire proposal put forward by US envoy Steve Witkoff, but Hamas is still studying the plan. 'Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas,' White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters. 'I can also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home.' Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim told the AFP news agency that the US proposal meant 'the continuation of killing and famine … and does not meet any of our people's demands, foremost among them halting the war.' 'Nonetheless, the movement's leadership is studying the response to the proposal with full national responsibility,' he added. Akiva Eldar, an Israeli political analyst, told Al Jazeera it was 'unusual' for Israel to come out and agree to a proposal first and that Netanyahu may be betting on the plan being impossible for Hamas to accept so that he can paint them as the 'bad guys' and continue the war. 'It happened before … and Netanyahu put the blame on them,' he said. Earlier this week, Hamas officials said the group reached an understanding for a ceasefire deal with Witkoff, but Israel and the US were quick to dismiss the assertion by the Palestinian group.
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Gaza health system 'stretched beyond breaking point', WHO warns
Intensified Israeli ground operations and new evacuation orders are stretching Gaza's health system beyond breaking point, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Indonesian, Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals in the northern towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia were inside an evacuation zone announced on Tuesday. Another two hospitals are within 1km (0.6 miles) of Adwan was out of service due to hostilities nearby and the Indonesian hospital was inaccessible because of the presence of Israeli forces around it, he hospital is still functioning, but its director told the BBC on Wednesday that it was "totally under siege". "Nobody can move out and we can't receive any cases from outside the hospital," Dr Mohammed Salha added that there was a quadcopter drone "shooting in the surroundings of the hospital and the outdoor area of the hospital"."We also hear shooting from the tanks... maybe 400 or 500 metres [away]."Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that it was "operating in the area against terror targets", but that it was "not aware of any siege on the hospital itself".Dr Tedros said: "Even if health facilities are not attacked or forced to evacuate, hostilities and military presence obstruct patients and staff from accessing care, and WHO from resupplying hospitals, which can quickly make them non-functional.""We've seen this too many times - it must not be allowed to happen again." Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also said that at least 20 medical facilities across Gaza had been damaged, or forced partially or completely out of service, in the past week by Israeli ground operations, air strikes and evacuation charity demanded that Israeli authorities stop what it called the "deliberate asphyxiation of Gaza and the annihilation of its healthcare system".Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining 58 hostages, up to 23 of whom are believed to be several days of intense bombardment, the IDF launched an expanded offensive on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would see ground forces "take control of all areas" of Gaza. The plan reportedly includes completely clearing the north of civilians and forcibly displacing them to the than 600 people have been killed and 2,000 injured across Gaza over the past week, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. The UN says tens of thousands of people have been newly also said Israel would allow a "basic" amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine. But the UN has so far been unable to collect the dozens of lorry loads of supplies allowed in since said the volume of aid allowed in so far was not nearly enough, describing it as "a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over". On Tuesday, the WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories said he had recently returned from Gaza and witnessed how the health system was facing attacks and acute shortages of supplies."Every time you get into Gaza you always think it cannot get worse. But it gets worse," Dr Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in described how al-Awda hospital was "overwhelmed with injuries" and running low on supplies. Hostilities had damaged the facility, disrupted access and deterred people from seeking healthcare, he said the Indonesian hospital was barely functioning, almost inaccessible, and that most patients had left last week after a staff member was killed, one patient was injured and the facility was damaged during intensified 15 people, including patients and staff, were still inside the hospital as of Tuesday, urgently in need of food and water, he hospital's generator was also struck by an Israeli quadcopter on Monday night, causing a large fire and a blackout, according to MER-C Indonesia, the NGO that built the Wednesday, a woman inside the hospital told the BBC by telephone that two of the patients were in a "serious condition".In the background of the call, crashes could be heard."Five minutes ago, there was intense shooting in the surroundings of the hospital," she said, adding that she could see woman also said that they still had supplies of food inside the hospital, but were "facing a water crisis".The IDF told the BBC it was operating in the area around the hospital and targeting "terrorist infrastructure sites", but that it was not targeting the hospital itself. In another incident on Tuesday, a paramedic said his ambulance was shot at by an Israeli drone while he was transporting staff and food between al-Awda and Kamal Adwan Sadeh said he was with another ambulance when bullets hit both vehicles' windshields. Nobody was Salha shared photos of the ambulances and confirmed that Mr Sadeh was unable to return to al-Awda because of the threat of Israeli BBC supplied details of the allegations and photos to the IDF, but it said it "could not confirm" the and medical personnel are specially protected under international humanitarian only lose that protection in certain circumstances. They include being used as a base from which to launch an attack, as a weapons depot, or to hide healthy IDF has insisted that its forces operate in accordance with international law. In most instances where it has attacked hospitals, it has said they were being used improperly by Hamas - an allegation the group has denied. In the southern city of Khan Younis, the European hospital - the only facility providing neurosurgery, cardiac care and cancer treatment in Gaza - has been out of service since 13 day, the hospital's courtyard and surrounding area was hit by a series of Israeli air strikes that Israel's defence minister said targeted an underground bunker where the head of Hamas's military wing, Mohammed Sinwar, was hiding. Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said the attack killed at least 28 people, but it is not clear yet whether Sinwar facility has also been inside an Israeli-designated evacuation zone covering almost the entire eastern half of Khan Younis since Tedros said Nasser, al-Amal and al-Aqsa hospitals, as well as one field hospital, were within 1km of the zone. Dr Victoria Rose, a British surgeon working at Nasser hospital, said in a video posted on social media on Wednesday that she was very worried about the facility being evacuated or cut off by an Israeli troops advance from al-Aqsa, which in the central town of Deir al-Balah."If we get cut off from the Middle Area, there really are no other hospitals around us that could cope with the evacuation of Nasser," she explained."We have some amazing field hospitals... but none of them are capable of doing the type of surgery that we're doing here. And none of them have ICU capacity or generated oxygen. So, even all of them together couldn't cope with the amount of patients that we have."She warned: "If Nasser is evacuated, we really are looking at the imminent death of hundreds of patients because we won't be able to take them anywhere." Nasser was also hit by an Israeli strike on 13 May, killing two people including a Palestinian journalist who was being treated for injuries he sustained in a previous strike on a tented camp at the complex. The attack also destroyed 18 beds in a burns unit, according to the IDF accused the journalist of being a Hamas operative and alleged that the hospital was being used by the group to "carry out terrorist plots".Another strike on Monday severely damaged Nasser's medical warehouse and destroyed critical WHO supplies, according to the hospital's Shaath, a pharmacist from Khan Younis who has been told by the IDF to evacuate and head to camps in the coastal al-Mawasi area, told the BBC in a voice note: "I have not left my house until now because I haven't found any place to set up my tent.""The humanitarian situation is very serious - no water, no food, no fuel. The shelling is hitting everywhere," she launched a military campaign in Gaza in response Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken least 53,655 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,509 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory's health ministry.
Arab News
21-05-2025
- Health
- Arab News
Two of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza encircled by Israeli forces
Two of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals have been encircled by Israeli troops, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week, as Israel pursued its renewed offensive into the devastated Palestinian Indonesian hospital and Al-Awda hospital are among the region's only surviving medical centers. Both have come under fire this week, including shelling at Al-Awda that happened Wednesday as The Associated Press spoke to its director on the phone.A third hospital, Kamal Adwan, is out of service, its director said, citing Israeli troops and drones in its authorities issued evacuation orders Friday for large parts of northern Gaza ahead of attacks intended to pressure the Hamas militant group to release more hostages. New evacuation orders followed three hospitals and three primary health care centers are within the evacuation zone. Israel has not ordered the evacuation of the facilities themselves. Another two hospitals and four primary care centers are within 1,000 meters (yards) of the zone, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health military operations and evacuation orders 'are stretching the health system beyond the breaking point,' he of attacks on health facilitiesOnly 20 out of Gaza's 36 hospitals remain partially functioning, serving the territory's more than 2 million people, amid continued bombing, rising malnutrition rates, and dwindling medical WHO said hospitals in northern Gaza are 'at a serious risk of shutting down completely.' The United Nations agency has documented nearly 700 attacks on health care facilities in Gaza since the start of Israel's 19-month war against the Hamas militant Israeli military has raided or laid siege to hospitals throughout the war, accusing Hamas of using them as command centers and to hide fighters, though it has only provided evidence for some of its claims. Hamas security men have been seen in hospitals during the war, controlling access to certain areas, and in recent weeks Israel has targeted alleged militants inside health say the latest attacks on hospitals in the north are part of a larger plan to displace the population to the south and eventually drive them from has vowed to facilitate what it refers to as the voluntary migration of much of Gaza's population to other countries, which many Palestinians and others view as a plan for forcible wants to 'ensure the forced displacement of people from the area' by putting hospitals out of service, said Rami Shourafi, a board member of Al-Awda Indonesian hospital comes under attackThe Indonesian hospital, once the largest in northern Gaza, has been surrounded by Israeli troops, who were positioned about 500 meters (545 yards) away. Drones have hovered above, monitoring any movement, since Sunday, an aid group that supports the hospital Israeli military said its forces were operating around the hospital and targeting Hamas infrastructure but that troops had not entered the facility and ambulances were allowed to bulldozers demolished a perimeter wall of the hospital, according to the aid group MERC-Indonesia and a hospital staff member who had since evacuated. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the Tuesday, airstrikes targeted the hospital's generators, sparking a fire and damaging its main power supply. The strikes also caused damage to the hospital's water supply, according to a video posted by MERC-Indonesia. Large flames were seen rising from the area before daybreak. A speaker in the video said the fire was close to the hospital fuel supply, but firefighters controlled the least one staff member was killed, according to WHO, which said those who remained in the hospital were in urgent need of water and food. The UN said it was working to transfer remaining patients to other activity around the hospital also damaged ceilings, the hospital roof and some equipment. At least 20 doctors and staff members decided to stay in the building, said MERC-Indonesia, and most patients evacuated themselves after fighting intensified in the area starting and staffers at the hospital were not immediately reachable for comment. A video posted by MERC-Indonesia that was shot from the hospital windows showed an Israeli tank a few meters (several feet) away from the strikes isolate Al-Awda hospitalNearly a kilometer (about half a mile) away, Israeli drones fired Monday into the Al-Awda hospital courtyard, preventing movement, Shourafi said. On Wednesday, the hospital was shelled while its director was on the phone with The Associated Press. A large boom could be heard on the call.'They are bombing the hospital,' said Dr. Mohammed Salha, the facility's director. He later said one security guard was wounded. Patients were not near to the area hit, he said.A video shared with AP showed damage to the roof and debris in the corridors, with dust still rising from the Tuesday, Israeli drones fired at two ambulances that transferred three patients to Gaza City as the crews tried to return to the hospital, spokesperson Khaled Alhelo himself was unable to return to the hospital Tuesday because of military activity. There are currently no ambulances or Internet lines at Al-Awda hospital, according to Shourafi and troops are about 900 meters (about half a mile) away from the hospital, Alhelo said. But the real risk, he said, is from Israeli drones flying over the hospital and preventing any movement in or out.'Anyone moving in the hospital is fired at. They are all keeping low inside the hospital,' he Israeli military had no comment when asked on the situation at Al-Awda and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday's 47 patients, including nearly 20 children and several pregnant women, and some 140 doctors and medical staff members are still at the hospital, hospital board member Shourafi said the hospital board decided not to evacuate the hospital and called for supplies and the return of ambulances because there are still bombings and wounded people in the area.'In light of the war, and conflict, it should remain functioning,' Shourafi said. He said the hospital has been besieged and raided several times since the war began in October 2023, but he called the current phase the 'most critical.'The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.___Associated Press journalists Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
Emirates 24/7
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Emirates 24/7
Israeli airstrikes kill at least 65 in Gaza
At least 65 Palestinians were martyred early Wednesday in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, with 50 fatalities reported in the north, according to local sources. Fifty people, mostly women and children, were killed in heavy bombardments targeting residential areas in Jabalia refugee camp and Jabalia town in northern Gaza. The martyred were taken to Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals, while several bodies remain trapped under the rubble of destroyed homes, the sources said. In the southern Gaza Strip, a man, his wife, and their two daughters were martyred in an Israeli strike on their tent in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis. Also in southeastern Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Al-Fukhari area also claimed the lives of several civilians. Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.
