Hospitals in Gaza face collapse amid airstrikes by Israel. Three hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been bombed by Israeli warplanes, including Al-Shifa and Al-Quds Hospitals in Gaza City and the Indonesian Hospital in the northern part of Gaza Strip, though the extent of the damage has not yet been determined.
There was “serious damage and injuries” caused as a result of the Israeli bombing, but the director of the Indonesian Hospital could not provide any more details about the incident.
It was reported on October 14 that the Palestinian Red Crescent Society had been told by Israel that Al Quds Hospital must be evacuated, but the Red Crescent Society claimed that the sick and injured could not be relocated.
According to a senior doctor in Gaza, a lack of electricity would have a serious adverse effect on many infants who depend on ventilators for their survival. The head of Al-Shifa Hospital’s neonatal department, Dr Fu’ad al-Bulbul, has stated that a situation like this would be catastrophic for the neonatal unit.
In his opinion, the majority of babies who depend on ventilators are going to die since we can only save one (or) two babies at a time, but we cannot save them all at once,” the doctor explained.
In a warning issued by UNRWA, the UN agency providing humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees, has warned that its fuel reserves will run out in three days, posing a threat to humanitarian efforts in Gaza. Al-Bulbul is a nursery at Al-Shifa Hospital, which is equipped with 45 incubators and is primarily responsible for caring for preterm babies from pregnancies with a high risk of preterm birth.
In the first two hours after birth, a baby does not have access to medical supplies which are crucial to his or her survival, so we are currently without any medical supply – the essential drugs that are life-saving for the newborn.”
There is a severe shortage of essential medicines in the country, as the doctor revealed they had run out of surfactant, and the last vial of caffeine citrate had been used on Sunday, in an attempt to address the shortage.
There is a lot of work being done, most of the infants are critically ill, and the medical team has been working 18 days in a row, leaving them exhausted, according to him.
Gaza strikes kill more Palestinians
There were scores of Palestinians who lost their lives in central Gaza on Sunday after Israel intensified its strikes on the war-torn enclave. Another convoy of 17 aid trucks arrived as the Hamas-run territory was facing “catastrophic shortages” of food and medical supplies.
The Iranian government expressed concern that the violence in the region could spiral out of control if the violence continued unchecked. In a sharp warning to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its involvement in the conflict would be “the worst mistake of its life”.
It has been made clear by Washington that it will not hesitate to act in the event that there is an “escalation” in the conflict between the two sides.
According to Israeli officials, Hamas fighters in Gaza stormed across the border into Israel on October 7, launching a raid that resulted in the death of at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
During the worst-ever attack in the history of Israel, they also seized more than 200 hostages as part of the attack.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israel has responded with a relentless bombing campaign that has so far resulted in the death of over 4,600 Palestinians, mainly civilians, including over 1,000 children. During the night between Saturday and Sunday, the central town of Deir al-Balah was particularly badly hit, according to officials.
Over 30 homes were destroyed in the overnight raids that took place in central Gaza, according to the ministry of health. At least 80 people have been martyred as a result of the raids.
AFP reported that several children’s bodies were found on the bloodied floor of the hospital morgue, where distraught families wept as they identified the victims as they filed through the morgue.
There was a man clutching his dead toddler and a young boy who lifted a blanket to cover the body of his little sister, one of those people.
“My cousin, who was a man without a record, who had nothing to do with the resistance, was sleeping in his house with his three-year-old daughter in his arms.” Wael Wafi, gazing at the body of his cousin who was still holding his three-year-old daughter, said.
On Sunday, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), announced in a statement posted on X, which was previously Twitter, that 29 of its staff members have been killed since the start of the war. The majority were teachers, half of whom were killed in the conflict. A total of 17 people had been killed as of Saturday, according to the police.
In the aftermath of the bombing, basic systems have been unable to operate as a result of the scale of the attack. As a result of a shortage of cold storage space in Gaza City, dozens of unidentified bodies have been buried in a mass grave.
It has also been reported that a soldier from the Israeli army was killed by an anti-tank missile fired by Hamas fighters inside the Gaza enclave near the Gaza border.
It is possible that the war with Hamas could last for months, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“At the end of the process, there will be no more Hamas, and it will take one month, two months, three months,” Gallant stated.
Gaza has been entered by a second aid convoy
In response to intense negotiations and US pressure, a second convoy carrying 17 trucks of humanitarian aid from Egypt entered Gaza on Sunday after a first convoy of 20 trucks arrived on Saturday.
Six other trucks left Rafah shortly after filling up on fuel dwindling fuel stocks at the crossing within the enclave, AFP reported on Saturday. The enclave has been suffering a catastrophic shortage of food, water, fuel, electricity, and fuel since Israel cut off supplies of the basics to the enclave.
Later on October 15, the company was able to restore water supplies to the south of the country.
There are reports in the Egyptian press that about 40 more trucks are going to enter Gaza on Monday, however, UN estimates that Gaza requires 100 trucks per day to meet the needs of its 2.4 million residents.
As of Sunday, UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini warned that unless fuel is delivered to the camp within the next three days, supplies would run out within those three days. As of yet, no fuel has been delivered to the camp.
In the absence of fuel, there will be no water, no functioning hospitals, and, as a result, the aid will not be able to reach many civilians in desperate need,” he said.
As a result of the raids, 165,000 housing units – half of the total number of housing units in the whole Gaza Strip – have been destroyed, according to the Hamas government.
In the face of growing fears that the conflict might spread, Israel confessed on Sunday that it accidentally hit an Egyptian border post, apologizing for the incident that left “minor injuries” to a number of Egyptian border guards, according to Cairo.
Escalation risk in the region
In addition to the previous gunfire exchanges over Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that entering into battle with Hezbollah, a close ally of Hamas and Iran, would be “the mistake of his life”.
In the words of the minister, “We’re going to attack it with a force it cannot conceive of, and the consequences for it and for the state of Lebanon will be catastrophic,” he declared.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Iranian diplomat in charge of foreign affairs, issued a warning against the spread of violence on Sunday. The Israeli and American governments must immediately halt the crime against humanity and genocide perpetrated in Gaza if they do not wish for the region to go out of control. If they do not stop this..
Nevertheless, just hours after the Pentagon announced it was stepping up its military readiness in the region, Washington announced that it would not hesitate to intervene in the event of an “escalation” in the region.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that if any group or any nation is looking to take advantage of this very unfortunate situation that we see, our advice is to keep your mouth shut.
The pope made a point of pleading for an end to the bloodshed during his weekly Angelus prayer in Rome on Sunday.
There is no doubt that war is a defeat, it is the destruction of human fraternity. Brothers, please stop,” he pleaded.
It was later reported that he had a 20-minute conversation with US President Joe Biden about “conflict situations in the world and the need to identify pathways to peace”, according to the Vatican press release.
In addition to discussing the war with the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy, Biden also met with the leaders of Great Britain and Canada.
There were also talks between the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the White House reported, adding that “the leaders confirmed that this critical assistance will continue to be delivered to Gaza in the future.”
It has been announced by the office of French President Emmanuel Macron that he will be traveling to Israel on Tuesday for meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It was a day of protest in several European capitals on Sunday.
As the Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to put an end to the resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents in the wake of the crisis between Israel and Hamas, at least 10,000 people rallied in Berlin in support of Israel.
The French capital, Paris, witnessed the largest pro-Palestinian rally in its history, as tens of thousands of protesters gathered to demand an end to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, the first such rally not banned by security concerns.
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