CNN
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A senior physician in northern Gaza says that dozens of medical staffers at his hospital have been taken to an undisclosed location by the Israeli navy, because the enclave’s wider healthcare system teeters on the sting of collapse.

Dr. Hossam Abu-Safia, head of pediatrics at Kamal Adwan Hospital, advised CNN in a telephone interview that the realm the place the ability is situated noticed significantly heaving bombing on Tuesday adopted by the arrival of Israeli troops, describing the scenario as “very dangerous.”

The troops advised all males between the ages of 16 and 65 to depart the constructing to be searched, he mentioned.

More than 70 medical employees had been “arrested and taken to an unknown area,” in accordance with Abu-Safia, together with hospital director, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlot. His declare was echoed in a press release by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.

Al-Kahlot had spoken to CNN lower than 24 hours earlier, alleging that Israeli tank shells had hit the hospital’s maternity ward on Monday. The strike killed two ladies and left two extra so badly wounded their legs required amputation, he mentioned on the time.

CNN was unable to succeed in Dr. Al-Kahlot on Tuesday.

Asked concerning the arrests, the Israel Defense Forces mentioned that it continues “to act against Hamas strongholds in the north of Gaza, among them the area of Beit Lahia.”

Kamal Adwan hospital is situated in Gaza City, not Beit Lahia.

The assertion added that the IDF is taking “all feasible precaution to mitigate harm to non-combatants, and is fighting against the Hamas terrorist organization, and not the civilians in Gaza or the medical teams operating there.”

Israeli actions in and round hospitals in Gaza have come beneath fierce criticism, as medical staff and NGOS warn that the well being system within the territory is barely useful and can’t tolerate any extra pressure.

Last month, the Israeli military raided Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, in quest of conclusive proof of the large-scale command and management middle it had claimed was there, as medical doctors rushed to evacuate sufferers and dozens of new child infants in want of incubators.

The IDF subsequently introduced some reporters to see the tunnels it had uncovered contained in the hospital compound, which additionally included a number of small underground rooms. CNN has been proven the tunnel shaft however has not been contained in the tunnels.

At Al-Rantisi kids’s hospital, medical employees had been additionally advised to depart, because the IDF carried out operations inside; Israeli navy officers later alleged that one room within the constructing’s basement was a Hamas armory, which had a handful of weapons and a chair with a rope subsequent to it – a declare Gaza well being officers denied.

Many medical facilities function shelters for displaced Gazans in search of security, along with caring for sufferers. But these in search of refuge in hospitals are discovering that “this is just not the case,” Marie-Aure Perreaut, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders within the enclave.

While hospitals as a class are protected by worldwide regulation, they might be considered as professional navy targets if found to be housing able-bodied combatants and weapons. The Israeli navy has mentioned it solely carries out operations in and round hospitals the place they’re being utilized by Hamas and different armed teams.

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According to Dr. Abu-Safia, he and simply 5 different medical doctors had been allowed to remain at Kamal Adwan Hospital to take care of sufferers in intensive care unit and untimely infants.

“They asked us to gather in only one section or building [and] close all the doors and windows, and not to be near doors or windows,” he mentioned.

But the care that the hospital’s remaining employees can supply sufferers too weak to be moved has been minimal, he mentioned, “due to acute shortages of fuel, water, food, and medical supplies even before the siege.” Today the hospital has no water or energy, he added, noting that medical doctors are “working with primitive flashlights to follow up on the patients left in the hospital.”

Across the besieged enclave, solely 11 hospitals stay even partially useful, in accordance with Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) consultant in Gaza, in a press convention Tuesday.

“In just 66 days the health system has gone from 36 functional hospitals to 11 partially functional hospitals – so, one in the north and 10 in the south,” he mentioned.

In the identical day, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus mentioned he was “extremely worried” about “reports of a raid at Kamal Adwan Hospital in #Gaza after several days of siege,” in a submit on X, previously often known as Twitter.

Several hospitals in northern Gaza have ceased operations in latest weeks, saying they obtained orders from the Israeli navy to evacuate. The Israeli navy disputes issuing such an order.

Fuel shortages have compelled a number of hospitals in Gaza to shut, whereas others have shut down attributable to airstrike injury, in accordance with the WHO.