Deadly strikes on hospitals in Gaza, Israeli toll revised downwards

Deadly strikes in the northern Gaza Strip have affected Friday, according to Palestinian officials, a school and hospitals where civilians seek refuge to escape Israeli bombings.

More than a month after the start of the war triggered by the bloody attack launched on its soil by Hamas on October 7, Israel has revised downwards, to 1,200 dead, mostly civilians. , the results of this attack.

In retaliation, Israel launched a war to “eradicate” Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, and is relentlessly shelling the small, besieged Palestinian territory, plunged into a catastrophic humanitarian situation.

Friday , Hamas reported 13 dead in a strike on the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza City, the largest in the territory where the war has brought the health system “to its knees”, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Hamas attributed this strike to Israel, as did the hospital director, Mohammed Abou Salmiya. He also affirmed that the hospital had received “around fifty bodies after the bombing on Friday morning of a school” in the city hosting displaced people.

“All hospitals in Gaza City were targeted” on Friday by the Israeli army, the doctor assured AFP.

The army, which has not commented on these assertions, indicated Thursday evening that one of its divisions was carrying out major operations in an area “very very close” to the hospital. She said Friday that she would “kill” Hamas fighters “who shoot from hospitals” in Gaza.

– “Morgues overflowing” –

The director general of the WHO launched a new cry of alarm before the UN Security Council on Friday, affirming that half of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are no longer functioning “at all” and that “more than 250 attacks” have targeted health facilities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since the start of the war.

“The situation on the ground is impossible to describe: hospital corridors piled up with wounded, sick and dying people, morgues overflowing, surgeries without anesthesia, tens of thousands of people taking refuge in hospitals,” declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In the city of Gaza in ruins, where basic foodstuffs are lacking, the fighting continues to increase in intensity as the columns of families fleeing towards the south grow.

In the courtyard of the immense al-Shifa hospital complex, Mohammed Rihane walks on crutches, while the surrounding explosions echo. “People are dying, torn to pieces in the streets and we can’t go get them,” he confided to AFP.

– Stop the “carnage” –

The director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, called on Friday for an end to the “carnage” in the Gaza Strip.

“Razing entire neighborhoods is not a response to the heinous crimes committed by Hamas. On the contrary, it creates a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians who could perpetuate the cycle of violence,” he said.

On October 7, Hamas commandos carried out a bloody attack on Israeli soil against civilians on a scale and violence never seen since the creation of Israel in 1948.

< p>Since then, Israeli bombings have left 11,078 dead in the Gaza Strip, mainly civilians, including 4,506 children, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

The Islamist movement, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, also holds 239 hostages, according to the Israeli army.

Photo taken from southern Israel showing smoke rising from buildings during an Israeli strike in the northern Gaza Strip, November 10, 2023 © AFP – Jack Guez

In recent days , the army declared that it was carrying out fierce battles against Hamas in the heart of Gaza City, where it said the “center” of the Palestinian movement's infrastructure was located, entrenched in a network of tunnels.

< p>The director of al-Shifa hospital spoke of Israeli tank fire on the maternity ward, while an AFP journalist saw at least seven bodies near the hospital.

A 32-year-old father, who calls himself Abou Mohammed, told AFP that he took refuge in al-Shifa, in the west of Gaza City, with 15 his loved ones after bombings on his neighborhood in the east.

– “No safe place” –

“There is no safe place, the army hit al -Shifa, I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said.

For years, Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals to carry out attacks or hide tunnels, and civilians as human shields, which the movement denies.

“Israeli tanks besiege four hospitals in west of Gaza City,” Hamas's health ministry said Friday.

Palestinians flee Gaza City and other areas of the northern Gaza Strip, where fighting between Israel and the Hamas movement is raging, on November 10, 2023, towards the south of the territory © AFP – MAHMUD HAMS < p>Witnesses saw in particular the al-Rantissi children's hospital surrounded by tanks.

The Palestinian Red Crescent indicated that Israeli snipers fired on the al-Quds hospital on Friday, speaking of at least one death.

Israel has agreed to make daily humanitarian “pauses” to allow civilians to flee the northern Gaza Strip, where the fighting is most intense, to the south, according to the United States.

This route has been used by 100,000 people since Wednesday, according to data from the Israeli army and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).

– “No water” –

On Friday, several tens of thousands of civilians, according to Israeli authorities, headed south again.

Among them was Mounir al-Raï, who came from the huge Shati refugee camp where, he says, the Israeli army fires from the air, the sea, on the ground with its tanks, indiscriminately, where ” houses are collapsing on their inhabitants.”

Hundreds of thousands of refugees are now crowded in the south of the territory, in disastrous conditions.

“We have not no water, no toilets, no bakery,” said Oum Alaa al-Hajin, who found refuge in al-Nasser hospital in the town of Khan Yunis after days of walking.

According to Ocha, the number of displaced people amounts to 1.6 million people out of the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.

The narrow territory is deprived of water , electricity, food and medicine due to the total siege imposed by Israel since October 9.

In the north, where hundreds of thousands of people still remain, “the lack of food is increasingly worrying”, worries the UN.

Meanwhile, rockets continue to be fired daily from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, where sirens sounded in Tel Aviv on Friday. Two women were injured by shrapnel, according to emergency services.

Situation of hospitals and health centers in the Gaza Strip © AFP – Sylvie HUSSON, Laurence SAUBADU, Sabrina BLANCHARD

Saturday, the countries of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which fear an escalation of the conflict, must meet urgently in Riyadh.

The Israeli army announced that it had intercepted three drones heading towards its territory on Thursday, and struck Syria on Friday after the fall of a drone on a school in southern Israel.

Israel is facing “multiple fronts,” army spokesman Richard Hecht said on Friday. “We are focused on Hamas, but we are dealing with terrorist groups throughout the Middle East,” he added.

The army also indicated Friday that it would “continue its operations to destroy the infrastructure” of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with which there are daily exchanges of fire. The pro-Iranian movement reported on Friday the death of seven of its fighters killed by Israel.

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