THE Israeli military has besieged hospitals and rounded up all the men at a refugee camp in Gaza and ordered women to leave, while a nearby airstrike on a house reportedly killed five people.
Medics told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting it ablaze – with the fire reaching a hospital generator and causing a power outage.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army, which started a new incursion into the territory's north over two weeks ago, to evacuate three hospitals in the area.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said Israeli authorities were preventing critical humanitarian aid, including medicine and food, from reaching areas in the north of Gaza.
“People attempting to flee are getting killed, their bodies left on the street,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said on Twitter/X.
Reuters also reported that the heads of the UN World Food Program and children’s agency Unicef have privately appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for help “alleviating the suffering of countless civilians” in Gaza and Lebanon.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said on Monday that at least two critically wounded patients in an intensive care unit died because of the lack of medical supplies.
“The hospital's blood units have run out completely ... We are implementing a priority treatment method for patients.
“This is the reality,” said Abu Safiya in a video message to media outlets.
Medics at one of the hospitals reported heavy Israeli fire near the facility on Monday evening.
“The army is burning the schools next to the hospital, and no one can enter or leave the hospital,” a nurse, who wished not to be named, told Reuters.
Palestinian health officials said at least 18 people had been killed in Jabalia and eight elsewhere in Gaza in Israeli strikes.
Israel has intensified its assault on both Gaza and Lebanon after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week.
It has vowed to destroy Hamas, the group that formerly controlled Gaza and whose attack on Israel last year triggered the war, but in doing so has killed 42,000 people and injured around 100,000.
More than 1.9 million people have been left destitute and desperate for food due to the year-long war.
“We are facing death by bombs, by thirst and hunger,” Raed, a resident of Jabalia camp, told Reuters.
“Jabalia is being wiped out and there is no witness to the crime, the world is blinding its eyes.”
