ISRAEL HAS BOMBARDED one of Gaza’s last remaining hospitals, injuring staff and child patients and damaging the building.

Israel escalated a major air and ground assault on northern Gaza last month, during which time it has killed hundreds of people and further cut off supplies.

Gaza’s health ministry has said Israeli forces have been “continuing to violently bombard and destroy Kamal Adwan Hospital”.

Hospital director Hossam Abu Safieh said in a statement the situation was “catastrophic”, with several staff wounded.

“We do not understand the purpose behind this bombing that is targeting the hospital.”

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said six child patients were injured in the strike on the hospital, which he described as “appalling”.

Israel’s military said it was checking the report.

Separately, it said troops “are continuing to operate against terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the northern and central Gaza Strip”.

Earlier yesterday, Israel issued formal notification that it was cutting off ties with UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees.

The ban sparked global condemnation and came despite the United States in mid-October warning Israel it could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military assistance unless it improves aid delivery to Gaza within 30 days.

“There is simply no alternative to UNRWA,” WHO chief Tedros said in a video on social media yesterday, adding that the “ban will not make Israel safer”.

Israel has accused a dozen of UNRWA’s roughly 13,000 employees in Gaza of involvement in the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas.

“On the instruction of Foreign Minister Israel Katz, the ministry of foreign affairs notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between the State of Israel and UNRWA,” a ministry statement said.

Katz was quoted as saying UNRWA was “part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution”.

The letter sent by Israel to the president of the UN General Assembly, dated November 3 and seen by AFP, said the ban would come into effect “following a three-month period”.

Jonathan Fowler, an UNRWA spokesman, told AFP the move would be disastrous.

“If this law is implemented, it would be likely to cause the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip — an operation of which UNRWA is the backbone,” Fowler said.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on social media that an average of just 30 trucks daily were allowed into Gaza last month.

The UN has said around 500 trucks entered every day before the war.

Gazans told AFP they were alarmed by Israel’s move.

Abdul Karim Kallab from the southern city of Khan Younis said the people “depend almost entirely on aid coming from abroad, especially from UNRWA”, and without it they would starve.

Hamas said it showed that Israel was a “rogue state”.

But Katz said aid would continue entering Gaza “in a manner that does not harm the security of the citizens of Israel”.

UNRWA fired nine employees after an internal probe found they “may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October”.

The UN General Assembly, which originally set up UNRWA, will hold a session on Wednesday, scheduled before Israel sent the letter.

Gaza’s civil defence chief Mahmud Bassal said Monday that “there is a severe blockade on medicine, water, and food” in north Gaza and more than 1,300 people have been killed in Israel’s operation there.

Hamas, meanwhile, said it had held talks with rival Palestinian faction Fatah in Cairo on “the war on Gaza and pathways for national action”, adding such talks would continue.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed Hamas for rejecting a temporary truce as he also pressed Israel again to allow more aid into Gaza.

Since last October, Israel has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, most of them civilians.

© AFP 2024