Besieged Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City ‘no longer functions as a hospital’ Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), said this. He said that the hospital has been without electricity and water for three days now. “Unfortunately, the number of patient deaths has increased significantly,” Gebraeus writes In X.

The Israeli military has surrounded the Al Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip for several days, claiming that members of Hamas are hiding under the compound. And heavy fighting is going on in the area. Israel has announced that it will cooperate in evacuating children whose lives are in danger from the hospital, but Hamas has reportedly rejected that offer.

WHO has now regained contact with its staff at Al Shifa Hospital, Gebreus said in his statement. Last Saturday, aid agencies no longer had access to their doctors and nursing staff. Several UN bodies, including UNICEF and WHO, called for immediate international action to end Israeli attacks on medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, says it left 300 liters of fuel near the hospital, but Hamas says that amount “de-escalates” the situation. The Palestinian Authority said in a statement that the hospital could operate for a maximum of 30 minutes. In addition to patients, Al Shifa Hospital also houses more than two thousand refugees from the Gaza Strip.

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