Health centres in north Gaza under siege in ‘day of war against hospitals’

Battles have intensified around several hospitals in northern Gaza, with some receiving direct hits and reports of casualties among patients and tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians sheltering at the facilities, as Israeli troops continue their advance.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Friday that Israeli tanks have been closing in on at least four hospitals from all directions.

The head of Al-Shifa Hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told Al Jazeera, “This day was a day of war on hospitals.”

“The sick and wounded occupy all of the hospital’s corridors, and we cannot perform surgical operations,” Salmiya said.

“We cannot find a single bed to place victims on,” he added about the situation in Gaza’s largest medical facility. “We are taking difficult decisions between who to save and who to let die … as I speak to you I am standing in front of 100 dead bodies.”

“During the past few hours, the Israeli military has been surrounding three hospitals in Gaza City and the Indonesian Hospital in the north,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Khan Younis.

“Using tanks and armoured vehicles, they have closed a roughly 100-metre (about 330-foot) perimeter around these hospitals, still sheltering thousands of wounded and displaced people. People have sent appeals from inside Al-Rantisi Hospital and Nasser Hospital, asking to be allowed to flee,” he said, adding that while Israel had ordered the evacuation of the facilities, even those who could flee were afraid of doing so without the guarantee of a safe passage.

“The journey from Nasser and Al-Rantisi Hospitals to the east of Salah al-Din Street in Gaza City is very dangerous and has been hit repeatedly by air strikes,” he said.