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Red Crescent ignores the order to evacuate hospital

Al-Quds is also a temporary shelter for 14,000 civilians, while about 35,000 more people camp at Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa.

A Palestinian carries an injured baby girl into the Al-Shifa hopsital in Gaza City on Sunday. Picture: AFP
A Palestinian carries an injured baby girl into the Al-Shifa hopsital in Gaza City on Sunday. Picture: AFP

Israel stepped up its bombardment of Gaza City on Sunday night as the World Health Organisation expressed “deep concern” over an order to evacuate a hospital in the heart of the city.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had been ordered “to immediately evacuate” al-Quds hospital, which is facing onslaught. It added that “since this morning, there have been raids 50m from the hospital”, covering wards with dust and debris.

The organisation said it ignored the order because of the danger to patients. “We have over 400 patients,” a representative said. “Many of them are in the intensive care unit. Evacuating them means killing them.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, backed the assessment, saying: “It’s impossible to evacuate hospitals without endangering lives.” The hospital is also a temporary shelter for 14,000 civilians, while about 35,000 more people camp at Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa.

The destruction following Israeli strikes on Al-Shatee camp in Gaza City on Sunday. Picture: AFP
The destruction following Israeli strikes on Al-Shatee camp in Gaza City on Sunday. Picture: AFP

On Friday the Israeli military released an infographic, along with excerpts from the interrogation of Hamas prisoners, detailing the group’s military infrastructure in tunnels deep under al-Shifa. Hamas has a sprawling network of tunnels and is thought to have stockpiled supplies in them, along with some of the 239 hostages Israel believes are being held.

Israeli planes dropped more leaflets on Sunday warning civilians still in the north of the Gaza Strip to leave before ground fighting began. The military said it had expanded its ground incursion and warned with increasing “urgency” that civilians should move to the southern part of Gaza.

A wounded man sits on a hospital bed among displaced Palestinians taking refuge in a tent at the gounds of Al-Shifa hopsital in Gaza City on Sunday. Picture: AFP
A wounded man sits on a hospital bed among displaced Palestinians taking refuge in a tent at the gounds of Al-Shifa hopsital in Gaza City on Sunday. Picture: AFP

Video posted by the army indicated three separate ground incursions into northern Gaza on Sunday, all within the area that Israel is pressing civilians to leave. The videos showed tanks crossing small, sandy hills and bulldozers clearing pathways through mountains of debris from the bombardment.

Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, chief military spokesman, said Israeli troops were “gradually expanding the ground activity and the scope of our forces”, and that they were “progressing through the stages of the war”.

The military also said ground forces had killed several Hamas militants leaving a tunnel near the Erez crossing, the sole pedestrian route into Israel before it was destroyed by Hamas during its October 7 assault.

A man sits in front of buildings destroyed by strikes in Gaza City. Picture: AFP
A man sits in front of buildings destroyed by strikes in Gaza City. Picture: AFP

A spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll in Gaza since the attacks began passed 8000 on Sunday, including 3,342 children. Save the Children noted that the number of child deaths exceeded the number killed in armed conflict around the globe every year since 2019.

It also noted the killing of 33 children by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank and 29 children killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israel.

“With violence not only continuing but expanding in Gaza, many more children remain at grave risk,” Jason Lee, the Save the Children country director in the occupied Palestinian territory said. “These are grave violations of epic proportions.”

A youngster jerricans of fresh water in Gaza City. Picture: AFP
A youngster jerricans of fresh water in Gaza City. Picture: AFP

Karim Khan, an International Criminal Court prosecutor, suggested that preventing access to humanitarian aid could be a crime after he visited the Egyptian Rafah crossing with Gaza.

“Impeding relief supplies as provided by the Geneva conventions may constitute a crime within the court jurisdiction,” he said in Cairo. The prosecutor added he wanted Israel to understand “there must be discernible efforts without further delay to make sure civilians ... received basic food, medicines”.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN that even though Hamas had placed its rocket infrastructure among civilians and used them as human shields, Israel was still responsible under humanitarian law “to distinguish between terrorists and civilians”.

Mr Sullivan added that President Joe Biden intended to reiterate that message in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This follows a row after Mr Biden cast doubt on the Palestinian death figures, prompting the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry in Ramallah to release records showing the names, dates of birth and ID numbers of those killed.

The Times

Read related topics:Israel

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/red-crescent-ignores-the-order-to-evacuate-hospital/news-story/c2da2f0ee1d1d836d94260b48e2937b8