WHO says Gaza’s biggest hospital becoming a cemetery

Nov 14, 2023 News

BBC NEWS – Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, is “nearly a cemetery”, the World Health Organization warns, with bodies piling up inside and outside.

Dozens of premature babies and 45 kidney patients needing dialysis can’t be treated properly due to a lack of power, a spokesperson from the UN health agency says. Fighting has been raging close to the hospital in recent days, with severe fuel shortages impacting treatment. Israel has accused Hamas of having a command and control centre under the hospital – which the facility and Hamas deny. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees meanwhile warns its humanitarian operations in Gaza will “grind to a halt” in 48 hours when it runs out of fuel. Israel began striking Gaza after the Hamas attacks on 7 October, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since – of whom more than 4,500 were children

At Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital, the largest in the territory, power cuts and a lack of fuel are causing severe difficulties, with particular international concern for the fate of dozens of premature babies no longer able to stay in their incubators.

Christian Lindmeier, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, told the BBC that as well as the premature babies, the hospital is unable to carry out kidney dialysis for 45 patients who need it. He said 600 patients remained in the hospital, and other people sheltering in the hallways. Doctors in Gaza say dead bodies are beginning to pile up both inside and outside the hospital, and Lindmeier also described this, saying the hospital was functioning more like a cemetery.

“:Around the hospital there are dead bodies which cannot be taken care of or not even be buried or taken away to any sort of morgue…The hospital is not working at all anymore as well as it should. It’s nearly a cemetery.” Lindmeier said. Around the hospital there are dead bodies which cannot be taken care of or not even be buried or taken away to any sort of morgue…The hospital is not working at all anymore as well as it should. It’s nearly a cemetery.”

A senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the BBC that Hamas do not want to accept solutions for the lack of fuel needed to save the premature babies at Al-Shifa hospital and that “they want pictures to show a crisis”.

Mark Regev, who is also the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom said, “We bought fuel especially for the babies, for the incubators… nobody wants to see these babies coming to harm.” Regev blamed Hamas for turning Al-Shifa hospital “into a warzone” saying that they had “deliberately built” their military infrastructure under the hospital – which both Hamas and the hospital deny. He also restated Israel’s claim that its forces were not deliberately targeting hospitals, saying that Hamas had “used those babies to shield its military machine”.

Meanwhile, doctors in Gaza have told the BBC that dead bodies are piling up and beginning to rot inside and around Al-Shifa hospital. Dr. Marwan Al-Barsh who is the director-general of the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said there were, “more than a hundred corpses” piled up in the courtyard, with the situation exacerbated by a lack of fuel to power the mortuaries.

“The electricity was cut off by the Israeli occupation forces that targeted the generators, which led to the decomposition and rotting of the corpses as we see worms coming out of them”, Al-Barsh said on BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline programme. Al-Bursh said they were struggling to bury their dead because of threats from the IDF. “We tried to co-ordinate with the occupation forces so that we would be allowed to bury the dead bodies inside the hospital, yet anyone who attempts to get out of the hospital is directly shot.” Israel asserts that there is a Hamas command centre underneath Al-Shifa – IDF spokeswoman Libby Weiss said: “We know that with certainty.” Hamas and hospital authorities deny this.

• Al-Shifa, Gaza, Hamas, UN agency, World Health Organization