At least 12 more people were reported to have been killed in Israeli strikes since Monday morning after Israeli forces surrounded Indonesian Hospital in Gaza – the fourth hospital to come under Israeli forces’ attack since October 7.
Quoting a journalist based in Gaza, Ismail Al Ghoul, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces were shooting whoever was trying to leave the hospital, adding that “the situation in the hospital is catastrophic”.
The journalist further told Al Jazeera that the hospital was full of people; sheltering more than 6,000, including staff and patients.
“It has been difficult to transfer patients from northern Gaza because Israeli forces are targeting anyone that approaches the area,” the journalist informed.
A group of 28 premature babies from Gaza were evacuated on Monday from a hospital inside the bombarded Palestinian enclave into Egypt to receive treatment, according to Egyptian television footage and a Palestinian hospital doctor.
The babies, from a total of 31 who were moved on Sunday from the besieged Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to a maternity hospital in southern Gaza as a first step towards evacuation, wore only nappies and tiny green hats.
In more updates from the Indonesian Hospital, Munner al-Bursh, General Manager of the Health Ministry in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that, “Israeli forces are continuing to attack the hospital.” He said the attack started in the middle of the night and “targeted the surgical department, wounding the doctors working there and killing 12 civilians who were taking refuge”.
Al-Bursh said the Israeli forces “then targeted people who were leaving the hospital by shooting them near the hospital. Their bodies are still lying on the ground and nobody has been able to bury them”.
A UN protectorate in Gaza would not solve the conflict there, the body’s secretary general said, calling instead for a “transition period” involving Arab nations and the United States and leading to a two-state solution, AFP reports.
Antonio Guterres said it was “important to be able to transform this tragedy into an opportunity” — which, for him, meant moving “in a determined and irreversible way to a two-state solution.”
This means, after the current fighting between Israel and Hamas fighters in Gaza ends, “a strengthened Palestinian Authority, assuming responsibilities in Gaza,” he said.
According to Al-Jazeera, the al-Kuwait UN school was burned down by the Israeli forces, adding that there were no reports so far of the death toll of the people sheltering in the school.—Agencies
