Israeli tanks on Monday surrounded Indonesian Hospital in Gaza where at least 12 people were killed following direct Israeli strikes since the morning, while Gaza’s health ministry director dismissed Israel’s claim that it had found a Hamas tunnel at the al-Shifa Hospital, describing it as a “pure lie”.
“The situation is catastrophic” in the Indonesian Hospital, where hundreds of people remain trapped, Ashraf al-Qudra, Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera on Monday
“The Indonesian Hospital staff is insisting they will stay to treat the wounded. There are about 700 people, including medical staff and injured people, inside the hospital,” he said.
At a separate hospital, funded by Indonesia, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by firing into the complex encircled by Israeli tanks.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said the facility in the northeast Gaza town of Beit Lahia had been hit by artillery fire. Palestinian health officials said there were frantic efforts to evacuate civilians out of harm’s way.
Hospital staff denied there were any armed militants on the premises. Israel says its forces in Gaza are targeting “terror infrastructure” and accuse Hamas of waging war behind human shields, including in hospitals. The Islamist group denies this.
Indonesia’s foreign ministry said it had lost contact with three Indonesian volunteers at the hospital who are part of the group that set up the facility in 2016 with Jakarta’s funding.
Like all other health facilities in the northern half of Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital has largely ceased operations but is still sheltering patients, staff and displaced residents.
Israel has ordered the complete evacuation of the north, but thousands of civilians remain, many seeking shelter in hospitals. Fuel and medicines have been running out across the entire enclave under Israel’s six-week-old siege.
In the south, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans who fled the north of the enclave are sheltering, at least 14 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli strikes on houses in Rafah, according to Gaza health authorities. There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incident.
Repeated Israeli bombardment of Jabalia, an urban extension of Gaza City that grew out of a camp for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, has killed scores of civilians, Palestinian medics say.
Despite continued fighting, U.S. and Israeli officials said a Qatari-mediated deal to free some of the hostages held in the Palestinian enclave and pause fighting temporarily to enable aid deliveries to stricken civilians was edging closer.
Since October 8, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, by unrelenting Israeli bombardment.
The United Nations says two thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been made homeless.
