An Israeli attack near a hospital in Rafah killed at least 11 people, Gaza health officials say.
An Israeli attack outside a hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza, killed at least 11 people and injured dozens of other displaced Palestinians, including children, who were sheltering in tents nearby on Saturday, the ministry said. Gaza Public Health.
At least two health workers, including a paramedic, were among those killed after the strike at the gate of the Emirates maternity hospital, the Health Ministry said.
Photos taken by news agencies showed colleagues of the paramedic, identified by the Health Ministry as Abdul Fattah Abu Marai, taking his body to the nearby Kuwaiti hospital, as well as injured children lying on stretchers as other children watched and cried.
The Israeli military said later Saturday that it had carried out a “precision strike” on “Islamic Jihad terrorists” near the hospital, with the help of Israel’s Internal Security Service. The army declined to comment on reports that children had been injured in the attack.
The Israeli military had previously declared that Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, would be a safe zone for civilians, and more than half of the enclave’s entire population is now crammed there, with many living in makeshift tents almost every inch available space.
But airstrikes on Rafah continue even as the number of people sheltering there has increased to about 1.5 million. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that his forces will invade the city regardless of whether or not a temporary ceasefire is reached, despite dire warnings from humanitarian groups and many of Israel’s allies that any military operation in Rafah would have catastrophic consequences would have for citizens. .
News of Saturday’s strike was “outrageous and unspeakable,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. said on social mediarenewing calls for a ceasefire and the protection of health workers and civilians.
The strike victims took shelter near the Emirati maternity hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza. Despite only five beds left for birthing women, the hospital manages more than half of the estimated 180 births that take place in the enclave every day, said Dominic Allen, representative of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Population Fund, a sexual and reproductive health care organization. organization known as UNFPA
The Emirati hospital is essentially “the last hope for pregnant women across Gaza,” Mr. Allen said. A strike so close to the hospital poses a “terrifying” risk to pregnant women, newborns and the overburdened health care workers trying to care for them, he added.