Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital ‘not functioning any more’, says WHO; Eighteen Israelis injured by Hezbollah anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon
The World Health Organization said al-Shifa hispital in Gaza “is not functioning as a hospital any more.” WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said: “The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced Sunday that the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip was “out of service and no longer operational”. It states that “the cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage”. The health authority in Gaza has said it is unable to issue updated casualty statistics in the Gaza Strip “due to the targeting of hospitals”.
Hamas on Sunday said it was suspending hostage negotiations because of Israel’s handling of the al-Shifa hospital, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks has told Reuters. Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, had reported there was some progress toward a deal, which would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three- to five-day pause in fighting.
Thirty-six babies are at risk of dying at al-Shifa hospital after fuel ran out on Saturday. Israel military spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht said plans to try to evacuate babies from the al-Shifa hospital were still being developed. On Saturday Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said “We will provide the assistance needed” to remove the babies from the hospital.
Eighteen Israelis have been injured, one critically, after the Iranian backed Hezbollah militia fired anti-tank missiles from southern Lebanon in a further sign that the skirmishes along the border are steadily escalating.
The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah party said its armed wing had used new types of weapons and struck new targets in Israel, and pledged that the front against its sworn enemy would remain active. In a televised address, only his second speech since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began in October, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah had shown “a quantitative improvement in the number of operations, the size and the number of targets, as well as an increase in the type of weapons”.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant warned Hezbollah not to escalate fighting along the boundary. “Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a war that might happen,” Gallant told troops in a video aired by Israeli television channels.
The US military conducted airstrikes on two locations in eastern Syria it said were linked to Iranian-backed groups, hitting a training location and a weapons facility. It marks the third time in just over two weeks that the US has retaliated against the militants for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing US troops in Iraq and Syria.
Brett McGurk, Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, will visit Israel on Tuesday and meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with further visits planned in Brussels, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar, a US official told Reuters.
The regional directors of Unicef, the UN Population Fund and the World Health Organization have called for “immediate action to halt attacks on healthcare in Gaza”. They added: “Attacks on medical facilities and civilians are unacceptable and are a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and conventions … The right to seek medical assistance, especially in times of crisis, should never be denied.”
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US does not believe Israel intends to re-occupy Gaza after its ongoing war with Hamas. “This is not our understanding of the Israel government’s position,” said Sullivan, his words in apparent contrast to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who told separately CNN, “The first thing we … will do … [is] destroy Hamas. The second thing we have to understand is that there has to be an overriding and overreaching Israeli military envelope.”
Egyptian security sources told Reuters that on Sunday at least seven injured Palestinians arrived on Egyptian soil through the Rafah border crossing, and that 32 Egyptians crossed over, alongside 80 foreign nationals and dependents. Russians and Poles were among those said to have crossed. Egyptian security sources also told the news agency that at least 80 aid trucks had moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon.
