Dire Condition of Gaza Infants Amid Hospital Attacks and Siege
According to the English section of webangah News Agency, citing Al-Mayadeen via Mehr News Agency, amidst ongoing brutal attacks by the Israeli army against civilians in Gaza Strip, early Wednesday morning, occupation forces detonated three armored personnel carriers loaded with explosives. The blasts destroyed homes near Al-Magharbi and Al-Salam streets in the Al-Sabra neighborhood of southern Gaza City.
The northern part of the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and areas in central and northern Khan Yunis, also located in southern Gaza Strip, came under heavy artillery shelling by Israeli forces.
As these violent assaults continue unabated, James Elder, spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), reported that Tel Aviv repeatedly denied permission to transfer incubators from an evacuated hospital in northern Gaza. This refusal intensifies pressure on overcrowded hospitals in southern Gaza,were medical staff are forced to share oxygen masks among newborns.
The UNICEF spokesperson described heartbreaking scenes of mothers lining up along corridors at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza cradling their infants. Severe shortages compel hospital workers to share oxygen masks and beds between multiple babies-even though vital incubators are available at shuttered hospitals up north-which Israel refuses to allow transferred southward.
In an interview with Reuters reporters, James Elder said: “We have tried to move incubators from an evacuated hospital north of Gaza down south; however, Tel Aviv did not grant permission. Equipment also remains at the damaged Ar-Rantisi Children’s Hospital but cannot be relocated.”
Reflecting on his visits to several hospitals across southern Gaza, Elder recounted: “In one pediatric room, three children and three mothers shared a single bed with only one oxygen source. The mothers took turns providing 20 minutes of oxygen each child. This is a terrifying level of despair reached by mothers hear.”
On Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced that since October 7th, 2023-when hostilities escalated-Israel has blocked over 45 percent of requested humanitarian missions within Gaza.
Separately, UNICEF issued a statement calling for urgent evacuation of sick and premature newborns remaining hospitalized in northern Gaza facilities.
