Update on the situation

GAZA – Israeli soldiers who are carrying out a raid on the al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City for the fourth consecutive day ordered its evacuation this Saturday, November 18 “within an hour”.

Currently, according to the UN, 2,300 patients, caregivers and displaced people are in this establishment and international concern is growing for their fate. Israel assures that Hamas, in power in Gaza, uses this establishment as a military base.

HuffPost takes stock of the situation in this hospital and other hot spots in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

· The situation at al-Chifa hospital

In a message broadcast in Arabic early in the morning, via loudspeaker, the IDF ordered the premises to be evacuated within an hour. The Israeli army also called hospital director Mohammed Abou Salmiya to demand “the evacuation of patients, the injured, the displaced and the caregivers and that everyone goes on foot to the corniche” coastal area which borders the hospital, west of Gaza City, this chief doctor reported to AFP.

Hundreds of people therefore left the al-Chifa hospital in Gaza on Saturday, with the Hamas Ministry of Health specifying that “120 injured” and premature babies could not be evacuated.

Doctors remained in al-Chifa to care for these patients, officials at the establishment told AFP, without giving the exact number of babies still in the compound. “We are in contact with the Red Cross about them”indicated the ministry, without further details.

The Israeli army assured that it had not given any evacuation orders but had “responded to a request” of the hospital director.

• Sick people pushed towards Salaheddine

These columns of displaced people, doctors, sick and wounded, some amputees, some very weak, were walking towards the Salaheddine road which leads to the south of the Gaza Strip. It is in this area that the Israeli army wants to relocate the 1.1 million inhabitants of the north, where the ground fighting against Hamas has so far been concentrated. She therefore opened a corridor leading to the Salaheddine road on Saturday.

On the way, the AFP journalist saw at least fifteen bodies, some in advanced decomposition. All around, the roads were broken, stores destroyed, cars overturned or crushed.

Around the hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, Israeli tanks, troop carriers and armored vehicles were visible, while Israeli drones hovered over the area.

· Deadly strikes in Khan Younes

During the night from Friday to Saturday, a strike against three buildings in Khan Younes, located in the south of Gaza, left 26 dead and 23 seriously injured, according to the director of the Nasser hospital in this town in the center of the strip. .

As the BBC recalls, Mark Regev, advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced yesterday on MSNBC that Israel was asking the occupants of Khan Younes to leave the premises: “I know it is not easy for them. but we don’t want to see civilians caught in the crossfire.”

· A first delivery of fuel

A first delivery of fuel arrived in the Gaza Strip after the green light from Israel, in order to restart the electricity generators of hospitals and telecommunications networks in the besieged territory, according to the director of a local hospital.

At the request of the United States, Israel allowed the entry of two fuel trucks into the Gaza Strip daily. The Palestinian Authority, responsible for the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border, announced Friday evening that 17,000 liters of fuel had been delivered to power the generators of the Gazan telecommunications company.

Israel has so far refused to let the fuel pass, saying it could benefit Hamas’s military activities.

· Strikes in the West Bank

Tensions are also high in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, where around 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Israeli army announced Friday that it had killed “five terrorists” in Jenin, stronghold of Palestinian armed movements. And according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, five people were killed and two others injured overnight from Friday to Saturday in an airstrike against the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, also known for housing young fighters from different Palestinian groups. .

Also see on HuffPost :