All the hospitals in the northern Gaza Stripwhere the densest part of the Palestinian enclave’s health infrastructure is located, they have stopped workingwith the sole exception of Al Ahli hospitalwhere 500 patients remain and can continue to receive some more despite the difficulties, as reported by the United Nations this Tuesday.

“All hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza are out of service due to the lack of electricity, medical supplies, oxygen, food and waterin addition to the bombings and clashes in the surrounding area,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned in its daily report on the impact on civilians of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The situation in the largest hospital in Gaza

The situation of Al Shifa hospital was the one that seemed most serious in recent days because it was the main hospital center in Gaza and having recently been in the center of armed clashes and have been damaged by Israeli bombing. According to the United Nations, in the last two days, 32 patients and three premature babies have died in said health center as a result of the electricity outage and the extremely precarious conditions.

The latest information received from that hospital indicates that as of this Monday there were between 600 and 650 hospitalized patients, between 200 and 250 staff members and 1,500 internally displaced people, while 36 babies in incubators and patients who need dialysis were at imminent risk of dying.

According to the Reuters agency, Israeli tanks have advanced to the doors of said hospitalthe largest in the Gaza Strip, where, according to health authorities, dozens of patients, including babies, have died due to the lack of electricity supply and the fighting. Israel maintains that there are Hamas tunnels under this hospital and that the militants are using the patients as shields, something the organization denies.

The Israeli Army has in turn assured that it is coordinating the transfer of incubators to Gaza to possibly evacuate newborns from the hospital. A spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry indicated on Monday that 32 patients had died there in the previous three days, including three babies, while at least 650 patients remained inside Al Shifa.

In this context, the president of the United States, Joe Bidenhas influenced that “Hospitals must be protected”: “My hope and my expectation is that there will be a less intrusive action regarding hospitals,” the president indicated in statements to the press this Monday, specifying that the US authorities remain in contact with the Israeli authorities.

Just this Monday, the Israeli Army released photos and videos of what it said were weapons stored by Hamas in a pediatric hospital specialized in oncological treatment. Hamas, for its part, has asserted on its Telegram channel that the video shows “fabricated scenes” to deceive public opinion and justify the attacks on hospitals.

Thousands of internally displaced people in Gaza

He Israeli army ordered evacuation of hospitals in the northern Strip, but the World Health Organization declared that this amounted to a death warrant due to the collapse of the medical system as a whole and that hospitals in the south did not have the capacity at all – and still do not have it – to receive evacuated patients.

At the same time, OCHA has noted that Israel continues to “call and apply pressure” on northern residents to move south, something some 200,000 have done in the last week, bringing the number of internally displaced people in Gaza to more than 1.7 million.