20 hospitals out of service: Palestinian Ministry of Health

CAIRO -11 November 2023: Twenty out of 35 hospitals have completely stopped and gone out of service, announced Palestinian Minister Mai Kila on Saturday while the vicinity of hospitals in Gaza are being bombed by Israel.

“Damn all international treaties and laws that cannot protect a hospital from bombing and aggression and cannot stop the Israeli machine of destruction and killing against hospitals, doctors, patients, wounded, civilians and the displaced,” she said.

The hospitals are unable to provide their services to the wounded, either because they were directly targeted by Israeli forces, or because they ran out of fuel and went out of electricity, she added, noting that there is a shortage in the number of medical staff all over the strip.

“What is happening now against hospitals is a decision to kill people who are sheltering, as the wounded are dying due to the exhaustion of fuel and medical consumables. Surgical operations are performed without anesthesia and there is no electricity on the lights of mobile phones.

“The catastrophe that is occurring in Gaza now is unprecedented in Palestinian and international history. Hospitals are besieged, bombed, and their patients, medical staff, and displaced people are killed in full view of the entire world,” she continued.

The lives of 39 premature babies in Al-Shifa Hospital are at risk of death at any moment, she said, noting that one of those premature babies died this morning because fuel ran out. The incubators will only be able to work until this evening, she said.

The number of the Palestinians killed by Israeli aggression has reached 11,025 people as of November 10 in Gaza and the West Bank since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza Strip on October 7, according to the latest official data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Meanwhile the injured people are more than 27,000.