The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Saturday that it is working on an evacuation plan for Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, the target of the Israeli army’s attacks on the Islamist group Hamas, describing the site as a “death zone”.

The statement followed a visit by WHO and other UN officials to the hospital, which Israeli forces besieged earlier this week.

A day earlier, the Hamas Health Ministry announced the deaths of more than 80 people in two Israeli bombings of a UN-run refugee camp in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip, devastated by fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement.

The first bombing, which targeted a school, killed 50 people and the second hit a house, killing 32 people from the same family, according to Hamas authorities, which have been in power in Gaza since 2007.

Images circulating on social networks, verified by AFP, show bodies covered in blood or dust on the floors of the building, where mattresses were installed under the desks.

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) expressed outrage over a “horrendous” attack. “These attacks (…) must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer,” the organization’s head, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote on the X Network.

The second bombing, which hit a house in the same refugee camp, killed 32 members of the same family, including 19 children, said the Hamas Health Ministry, which released a list of names.

The Israeli military said it was analyzing reports of “an incident in the Jabaliya region.”

According to the director of the Nasser Hospital in that city in the southern Gaza Strip, Khan Younis was hit by another Israeli bombardment during the night, killing at least 26 people.

Hamas commandos killed 1,200 people in Israeli territory on October 7, most of them civilians, and, along with other armed groups, kidnapped about 240 people, according to Israeli authorities.

Since then, Israeli retaliatory bombings in the Gaza Strip have been relentless, killing 12,300 Palestinian civilians, including 5,000 children, according to Hamas Health Ministry figures.

Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, has been a flashpoint in recent days as Israeli forces accused Hamas of using the medical facility as a command center, something the Palestinian group and health workers have denied.

On Sunday, the WHO said an assessment team visited the hospital, calling it a “death zone” with a huge cemetery at the entrance and about 300 patients and 25 staff members still inside.

“WHO and its partners are urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of remaining patients, staff and their families,” the organization said in a statement.

The WHO expected several missions to be organized in the coming days to urgently evacuate the remaining patients to the Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital in Gaza, although “they are already operating beyond their capabilities.”

A day earlier, hundreds of people evacuated Al Shifa, where at that time more than 2,000 patients, doctors and people were fleeing due to the war.

In parallel with the bombings, Israel has been conducting ground operations since October 27 in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has become a field of ruins.

On October 9, Israel cut off supplies of food, water, electricity and medicine that usually pass through Rafah, on the border with Egypt, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

According to Hamas, 24 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals have stopped functioning.

According to the UN, more than two-thirds of the Strip’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war. Most have fled south with the bare minimum and are surviving the coming cold.

At the request of the United States, Israel on Friday authorized the daily entry via Rafah of two fuel tankers. According to the authority of the Palestinian part of the border crossing, these first 17,000 liters will make it possible to reactivate the electrical generators of hospitals and telecommunications networks.

Tensions are also high in the West Bank, an area occupied by Israel since 1967, where about 200 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and Israeli soldiers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. (JO)