In the Gaza Strip, 31 premature babies were taken from Al-Shifa Hospital to a clinic further south. They’re lying there in the intensive care unit. The WHO describes the conditions in the Shifa clinic as devastating.
31 premature babies were brought from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), they were admitted to the intensive care unit of the maternity hospital at Al Hilal Hospital in the southern city of Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
The babies will soon be brought into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing, said the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas. In Egypt, the infants should continue to be treated in hospitals. According to the ministry, eight premature babies died in the Shifa clinic because there was a lack of electricity and medication. The information cannot be independently verified.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus showed a UN employee wearing a protective vest and helmet lifting a tiny baby on Platform X, the former Twitter. Tedros said further evacuations of remaining seriously ill patients were being planned. However, security guarantees from the conflicting parties are necessary for this.
Israel suspects Hamas structures under the clinic
The conditions in Shifa Hospital, where Israeli soldiers have been searching for terrorist hideouts for days, are described as devastating. Israeli troops are combing the clinic because there is said to be a Hamas command center underneath. Hamas denies allegations of using hospitals as bases for military operations.
According to WHO information, around 2,500 people who had sought protection in the clinic complex, as well as staff and patients, fled to the south of the Gaza Strip on Saturday following an evacuation call by the Israeli army. There are now said to be around 25 employees and more than 250 patients in the clinic.
Paris announces further help
France announced that it would take in sick and injured children. The Elysée Palace said it would use all available resources to bring the children to French hospitals.
In addition, the helicopter carrier “Dixmude” is to be relocated to the eastern Mediterranean. The warship will leave at the beginning of the week and reach Egypt “in the coming days.”
U.N-Human Rights Commissioner calls for a ceasefire
UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk expressed his horror at the recent events in the Gaza Strip. These were beyond imagination, he said. In attacks on schools converted into emergency shelters, people would be killed, hundreds would be forced to flee the Al-Shifa hospital, while hundreds of thousands would be displaced into the southern Gaza Strip. These are events that violate the basic protection “that must be granted to civilians under international law,” said the Human Rights Commissioner.
“The pain, terror and fear shown on the faces of children, women and men is too much to bear.” Humanity must come first, emphasized the UN Human Rights Commissioner and underlined the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire.