Medics, patients and displaced people are fleeing from the main hospital in central Gaza as the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants draws closer, witnesses said yesterday.
Losing the facility would be another major blow to a health system shattered by three months of war.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed an elite Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, a Lebanese security official said, the latest in a series of escalating strikes between Israel and the militant group that have raised fears of a wider war.
Photo: Reuters
Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups withdrew from al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the past few days, saying it was too dangerous.
That spread panic among people sheltering there, causing many to join the hundreds of thousands who have fled to the south of the besieged territory.
Israel says it has largely wrapped up major operations in northern Gaza and is focusing on the central region and the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israeli officials have said the fighting would continue for many more months as the army seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken during the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
The offensive has already killed more than 22,000 Palestinians, devastated vast swaths of the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly 85 percent of its population of 2.3 million and left one-quarter of its residents facing starvation.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was back in the region this week. The US, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for the offensive, has called on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians, but has also joined it in rejecting international calls for a ceasefire.
Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter in Gaza’s hospitals, which are also struggling to treat dozens of people wounded each day in Israeli strikes.
Only 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, the UN says.
Omar al-Darawi, an employee at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said the facility has been struck multiple times in the past few days.
He said that thousands of people left after the aid groups pulled out, and that patients have been concentrated on one floor so the remaining doctors can tend to them more easily.
“We have large numbers of wounded who can’t move” he said. “They need special care, which is unavailable.”
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS