GENEVA, April 2 — Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s biggest hospital in a raid over the past two weeks has ripped the heart out of the enclave’s healthcare system, said the World Health Organisation (WHO) today.
Israeli forces left Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City yesterday after the two-week operation by special forces, which detained hundreds of suspected Palestinian militants and left a wasteland of destroyed buildings.
Israel has said it killed hundreds of Hamas fighters who had based themselves there; Hamas and medical staff deny fighters were present.
“We have had contact with the staff. The directors told us that Al Shifa Hospital is gone. It is no longer able to function in any shape or form as a hospital.
“Destroying Al Shifa means ripping the heart out of the health system,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.
WHO is hoping to send a mission today to the site to see what it can do to save the lives of the remaining patients.
She added that did not have information as to whether Israel had granted permission to carry out such a mission.
“We have been trying to go for days and days and days, Most of our missions were rejected,” Harris said.
Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, was one of the few healthcare facilities that had been partially operational in the north of the enclave before the raid.
Palestinian officials called the assault on a hospital treating severely wounded patients a war crime. Israel says Hamas deliberately operates among vulnerable civilians.
— Reuters
