At least 12 people have been killed in an Israeli attack on the Indonesian hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. One of Doctors Without Borders’ clinics is also said to have been attacked.
The situation at the Indonesian hospital was already critical before today’s Israeli attack. Here, wounded Palestinians await treatment after another attack on 16 November. Photo: Stringer/Reuters/NTB
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Published: 20/11/2023 16:45 | Updated: 20/11/2023 17:28
The short version
12 people are said to have been killed in an Israeli attack on the Indonesian hospital in the Gaza Strip.
The summary is created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and quality assured by Aftenposten’s journalists.
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The Indonesian hospital is located in Beit Lahia, in the far north of the Gaza Strip. according to NRK is this the only hospital in Gaza City that has had some form of operation and has attempted to run patient treatment, despite the lack of medicines, equipment and electricity.
On Monday morning, 12 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli attack on the hospital, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra. According to him, several of the victims were patients.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi strongly condemns the attack.
– The attack is a clear violation of international humanitarian law, he says.
– All countries, especially those that have close relations with Israel, must use all their influence and all their abilities to make Israel stop the atrocities, says the Indonesian foreign minister.
Palestinian health authorities reported on Sunday that the number killed as a result of Israeli attacks since the terrorist attacks on 7 October has passed 13,000. Among these are 5,500 children. Aftenposten cannot independently verify these figures, which come from Hamas-controlled authorities.
The matter continues below the map.
Fires grenades
Around 700 people are still inside the Indonesian hospital, including patients and health personnel.
According to Al Jazeera on Monday, there were Israeli tanks right outside the hospital area, and it is feared that soldiers will enter the hospital, as they have always done at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The TV channel shows footage apparently taken from inside the hospital, where you can see tanks firing grenades.
One of the health workers employed at the hospital, Marwan Abdallah, also says that he can see Israeli tanks firing grenades right outside.
This is what it looked like inside the Indonesian hospital on 16 November. Many wounded civilians were almost left to fend for themselves on the floor due to a lack of capacity, personnel and medicine. Photo: STRINGER / Reuters / NTB
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Hospitals out of service – over two million lack of functioning health care
– We can see that they are driving around and shooting, he says.
– Women and children are terrified. We hear the sound of explosions and volleys of gunfire all the time, says Abdallah.
The Indonesian hospital has been the most important emergency department in the north of the Gaza Strip, while the Shifa hospital in Gaza City has received emergency patients further south in this area.
Several hundred patients, staff and displaced Palestinians left the Shifa hospital on foot at the weekend. 31 premature infants have been evacuated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously described Shifa Hospital as a death zone. There were then at most 300 patients who were cared for by 25 health workers.
The WHO has previously estimated that 20 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are destroyed or out of service due to a lack of electricity, water, medicines and equipment.
This number has steadily increased, and there are now no hospitals that have normal operations. All the remaining hospitals are completely at capacity, are overcrowded with many of the more than 27,000 wounded and have limited ability to provide health care to Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants.
The Indonesian hospital in the far north of the Gaza Strip took in a large number of victims at the weekend after an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp (pictured). On Monday, at least twelve people were killed in an attack that targeted the hospital, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Photo: AP / NTB
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Eyewitnesses: Got a one-hour deadline
Doctors and eyewitnesses have said that the Israeli military gave them an hour to evacuate the hospital, and that it happened while Israeli soldiers followed the evacuation with weapons in hand.
Israel, for its part, has claimed that it was only complying with a request to let people leave.
Israel has claimed for years that Hamas has had a command center under the Shifa hospital, but Israel has not presented evidence of this.
On Sunday, the Israeli army said it had found a 55-meter-long tunnel under the hospital.
Doctors Without Borders says they were fired upon
Doctors Without Borders’ outpatient clinic in Gaza City was shelled on Monday morning, and the organization’s vehicle was destroyed, the organization itself reports.
It is unclear what has happened to the employees who sought refuge in the building, says a press release from the organisation.
– Four of MSF’s cars also started burning while the fighting was going on. A fifth car parked across the street has been split in two, as if crushed by a tank or similar armored vehicle. The clinic and all the cars were clearly marked with the Doctors Without Borders logo, they write in the press release.
The clinic was not in operation due to the hostilities in the Gaza Strip, but there was an employee from Doctors Without Borders and 20 family members inside the clinic.
2023-11-20 18:07:26
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