GAZA, Jan 4 (NNN-WAFA) – Continuing airstrikes were reported across Gaza yesterday, and “intense ground battles” between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in refugee camps in central areas have left many Palestinians dead.
Airstrikes and missiles struck dwellings and public buildings, including Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis killing five, among them a five-day-old baby, reports indicate.
“No child in the world should be killed, let alone one sheltering under the emblem of a humanitarian organisation; this has to end,” said Gemma Connell, a team leader from UN aid coordination office OCHA, in a video posted on X soon after the attacks.
According to Ms. Connell, the hospital was “clearly marked” with the logo of the Palestinian Red Crescent.
An estimated 14,000 people were sheltering at the health facility, when it was shelled twice, attacks that were also swiftly condemned by UN health agency chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I deplore today’s (yesterday’s) strikes on the Al-Amal hospital…which severely damaged the Palestine Red Crescent Society training centre, located within the hospital complex,” Tedros wrote on X.
Adding his voice once again to repeated international calls for an immediate ceasefire, Tedros described the hospital bombardment as “unconscionable.” Gaza’s health system is already on its knees, with health and aid workers continuously stymied, in their efforts to save lives, due to the hostilities.”
Many of those sheltering at Al-Amal when it was shelled had now left, the WHO Director-General said, while those remaining were “extremely fearful for their safety and planning to leave a place they had turned to for refuge and protection”.
Under international humanitarian law, the hospital “should be a protected space…and today (yesterday) it was hit twice,” said Dr. Ayadil Saparbekov, WHO Team Lead for Health Emergencies, speaking from the facility in a video posted on X, during a UN assessment mission to the hospital that indicated extensive damage.
“The war should stop, the healthcare workers and health facilities should be protected.”– NNN-WAFA
