The hospitals of the Gaza Strip They will cease or reduce their activities within 48 hours due to lack of fuel, the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian territory, governed by Hamas and shaken by a serious humanitarian crisis, warned on Friday.
The notice comes one day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Thursday against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuand his former Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in this conflict unleashed after the lethal attack by Hamas in October 2023.
The Gaza Ministry of Health issued an “urgent warning” as all hospitals in the besieged and war-torn territory will stop or reduce their activities “within 48 hours due to the obstruction of fuel entry” by Israel into the small besieged territory.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared itself “deeply concerned” about the situation of 80 patients, eight of them in intensive care, and the staff of the Kamal Adwan hospital, one of two partially operating in northern Gaza.
The day before, an attack hit this hospital and damaged the generator and water tank, added the organization’s director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Hospital director Hosam Abu Safiyeh told AFP that his facility was again the target of Israeli attacks on Friday.
The Civil Defense reported 12 dead and several wounded in bombings in the east and south of Gaza City.
Five “terrorists” dead
“I have lost my entire family, 10 people, and I am the only one left,” Belal declared in a room at Al Ahli hospital, where the victims were taken.
Israeli authorities stated that they had “eliminated five Hamas terrorists”, including two responsible for “murders and kidnappings” on October 7, 2023 in Israel, in an attack in the Beit Lahia area (north) early Thursday morning .
The bombing left dozens dead and missing, according to medical sources in the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli army launched a new offensive in northern Gaza in October, which left more than a thousand dead, according to the Ministry of Health of the territorywith the aim of preventing the Islamist movement from rebuilding its forces in that area.
In the attack that sparked the war, Islamist militants killed 1,206 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include the dead hostages.
Of those kidnapped, 97 remain captive in Gaza, but the Israeli army estimates that 34 of them died.
The retaliatory Israeli military offensive claimed the lives of at least 44,056 people in the Palestinian territory, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health, considered reliable by the UN.
The ICC order
After more than a year of war, the ICC angered Israel by issuing arrest warrants for Gallant and Netanyahu. The latter described the decision as “anti-Semitic.”
These orders in theory mean that any of the court’s 124 member states would be obliged to detain the accused if they enter their territory, although some such as Hungary have already hinted that they will not do so.
US President Joe Biden denounced a “scandalous” decision. Instead, Iran saw in this ruling “the political death of the Zionist regime.”
Hamas for its part celebrated an “important step towards justice”, but did not mention the arrest warrant that the ICC simultaneously issued against the head of the movement’s armed wing.
According to Israel, Mohamed Deif, considered one of the masterminds of October 7, was killed in an attack in July in Gaza, although Hamas did not confirm his death.
In parallel to the conflict in Gaza, Israel and the pro-Iran Hezbollah movement entered open war in late September in Lebanon, almost a year after the Shiite militia opened a front against Israel in support of its ally Hamas.
Efforts to ensure a truce in Lebanon were the focus of a conversation this Friday between Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.
On the ground, Israel continued its campaign against the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, hit on Friday night and early Saturday by at least three bombings.
In Baalbek, another stronghold of the Shiite movement in eastern Lebanon, a hospital director and six of his colleagues were killed in an Israeli bombing, according to the Health Ministry.
Five lifeguards affiliated with Hezbollah in the south, where Israel has been carrying out ground incursions since September 30, according to the same source.
More than 3,640 people have died since October 2023 in Lebanon due to violence between Israel and Hezbollah, the majority since the conflict escalated in September, according to authorities in that country. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians died.
