The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is calling for the “immediate protection of all civilians, including humanitarian workers and medical personnel” in Gaza, pointing towards the collapse of the entire health system.
Radiance News Service
Nov. 10, 2023
Even as a ‘second Nakba’ is in process, with Gazans fleeing to the South (which is also being bombed), the health systems of Gaza are under extensive and continuous attack, never mind the ‘4-hour humanitarian pauses’ announced yesterday. Hospitals such as the al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, which includes children attached to dialysis machines and thalassemia patients, the al-Shifa Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital and others are under continuous attack.
Horrifying visuals of people lying in pools of blood in the outpatient wards and corridors have flooded social media. From a time when Israel denied attacking hospitals and instead blamed stray rockets coming from Hamas, to open bombardment proudly being claimed by the Israeli forces, the month of violence has indeed seen dramatic shifts in the propaganda narrative.
Regarding the so-called humanitarian pauses, a managing director at a political risk firm, Sami Hamdi told Al Jazeera that “The pause is designed to be a vehicle through which the US can continue to support Israel’s push to ethnically-cleanse the northern part of Gaza, but also be able to reframe and present that support to the raging global public as ‘humanitarian’.”
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says Israeli tanks on Friday surrounded four hospitals from all directions: the al-Rantisi Hospital, al-Nasr Hospital, and the eye and mental health hospitals. Al-Rantisi is the only hospital in Gaza that specialises in treating children with cancer. Al Shifa Hospital has been bombed five times since Thursday night.
World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Margaret Harris has warned that the hospital is “coming under bombardment”. While al-Shifa has the capacity for about 700 patients, it is currently treating about 5,000, and sheltering many of the displaced. International humanitarian law based on the 1949 Geneva Conventions considers hospitals civilian objects that receive protection, but Israel appears to have very little to do with such international conventions and laws regarding humanitarian concerns, with schools, hospitals and homes all under ceaseless attack.
