Photo : Collected
One of Gaza's last functioning hospitals has been emptying out in recent days as Israel has ordered the evacuation of nearby areas and signaled a possible ground operation in a town that has been largely spared throughout the war, officials said Monday.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah is the main hospital serving central Gaza. The Israeli military has not ordered its evacuation, but patients and people sheltering there fear that it may be engulfed in fighting or become the target of a raid.
Also on Monday, Israeli strikes in Gaza City and Khan Younis killed at least 19 people, according to local officials, and fighting between Israel and Hezbollah resumed across the Lebanon border.
Israeli forces have invaded several hospitals in Gaza over the course of the 10-month-old war, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials.
Israeli evacuation orders now cover around 84% of Gaza's territory, according to the United Nations, which estimates that around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have been forced from their homes. Many have been displaced multiple times.
The evacuation orders have reduced the size of the humanitarian zone declared by Israel at the start of the war while crowding more Palestinians into it. Thousands of Palestinian families have packed into tent camps along the beach where aid groups say food and clean water are scarce and disease spreads quickly.
The most recent satellite images available from PlanetLabs and analyzed by The Associated Press show the increase in tent density along the beachfront since July 19.
"Where will we get medicine?" Adliyeh al-Najjar said as she rested outside the hospital gate. “Where will patients like me go?”
Fatimah al-Attar fought back tears as she left the hospital compound heading in the direction of the tent camps. “Our fate is to die,” she said. “There is no place for us to go. There is no safe place.”
The U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs known as OCHA said that since Friday the Israeli military has issued three evacuation orders for over 19 neighborhoods in northern Gaza and in Deir al Balah, affecting more than 8,000 people staying in these areas.
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