Dr. Saleha described the situation as “extremely catastrophic” due to the nonstop “attacks, shelling, and gunfire” around the hospital by the Israeli occupation army.
The Al-Awda Hospital in the north of Gaza announced on Tuesday that it exhausted all the medical supplies and food, while fuel supplies are also close to exhaustion due to the enduring siege by the Israeli occupation forces in the north of the Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency reported.
“We are living under a complete siege, as the Israeli occupation has tightened its grip on the hospital since Monday,” the director of the medical facility, Dr. Mohamed Saleha told Anadolu.
“Medical staff are unable to move or receive any external support,” he added.
Dr. Saleha warned of a “genuine catastrophe” if these essential commodities are not urgently delivered within the coming days.
In regard to the security situation surrounding the hospital, Dr. Saleha told Anadolu that the medical facility is under constant attack by the Israeli occupation forces, which makes it impossible for injured people to reach the medical facility or for anyone to leave.
“Al-Awda Hospital refused to evacuate and we will refuse to evacuate unless there is a forced evacuation … We are humanitarians and will remain humanitarians providing humanitarian and health services to people.”
Dr Mohammed Salha gives an urgent update from Al-Awda Hospital,… pic.twitter.com/ia1KtaarF0
— ActionAid UK (@ActionAidUK) October 10, 2024
He described the situation as “extremely catastrophic” due to the nonstop “attacks, shelling, and gunfire” around the hospital by the Israeli occupation army.
The Al-Awda director stressed that the hospital is packed with “patients needing urgent medical attention, along with women who have recently given birth and require postnatal care.”
Saleha urged international organizations “to pressure the Israeli occupation (forces) to halt these atrocities and crimes of genocide and to allow the entry of medicines, medical supplies, and food into the hospital,” according to Anadolu.
Free Passage of Aid Requested
The United Nations for Refugees and Works Agency (UNRWA) urged the Israeli occupation authorities on Monday to allow its team access to the north of Gaza to conduct “lifesaving operations” amidst a deadly Israeli military campaign for over two weeks leaving Palestinians with no medicine, water or food.
The UN organization reiterated in a post on X the urgent request by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to the Israeli occupation authorities “to allow access in order to carry out lifesaving rescue operations in (northern) Gaza, including the recovery of people trapped under rubble.”
UNRWA detailed in another post the health situation in the north of Gaza stating that none of UNRWA’s medical points are operational, nonetheless, its teams are ready but in desperate need of medical supplies to be able to provide care.
It added that patients in the ICU have died following power cuts due to Israeli strikes on hospital facilities, stressing that the Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals are operating at minimum capacity due to an acute shortage of medical supplies and staff.
Israeli forces have cut off northern #Gaza from aid, ordering civilians out.
In September, they denied or impeded the access of 83% of all humanitarian movements planned to cross the south-north checkpoints.
This is how it looks on the ground. #AccessDenied pic.twitter.com/qFcWMNQ1sG
— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) October 10, 2024
UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, stated in a post on his X account that the Israeli occupation authorities “continue to deny humanitarian missions to reach the north with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege.”
He demanded the Israeli occupation authorities to allow humanitarian agencies including the UNRWA access to the north of Gaza, emphasizing that “no one should beg to assist or be assisted,” and aid should reach everyone in Gaza including Israeli captives.
Bloody Siege
The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza announced that over 600 people have been killed since the beginning of the latest Israeli military offensive in the north of the Strip over two weeks ago, Anadolu news agency said.
“The bodies of dozens of dead people are still under the rubble and on the streets as civil defense teams can’t reach them,” the Palestinian Civil Defense Spokesman Mahmoud Basal told Anadolu.
A health ministry official in Gaza stressed on October 19 that the exact number of casualties is impossible to determine in the north of Gaza.
“The figures are alarming, and the ones we report are only those we manage to recover,” he said, noting that the three hospitals in northern Gaza are now out of service after being targeted by Israeli forces.
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The official confirmed that the current conditions in northern Gaza are more dire than in the early days of the war. “We are receiving distress calls about the occupation forces executing civilians they have detained in northern Gaza,” he added.
On the 17th day of the suffocating Israeli siege on the north of Gaza, scenes of death and destruction remain to emerge from the stricken area.
The bombardments have destroyed homes, shelters, and entire residential neighborhoods while blocking the entry of food, water and medicine.
Gaza Genocide Continues
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 42,792 Palestinians have been killed, and 100,412 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
LIVE BLOG: Loud explosions in Tel Aviv | Israel’s Extermination in Northern Gaza – Day 383
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(PC, Anadolu)