Main Gaza City hospital says it can’t obey IDF evacuation order

By Agencies 14 October 2023, 6:43 pm

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A Palestinian man walks with a child while a woman comforts another outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 12, 2023. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

Officials at Gaza City’s largest hospital say following the IDF’s order to evacuate to the south of Gaza is impossible.

Al-Shifa Hospital is receiving hundreds of wounded every hour and had used up 95% of its medical supplies, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia says. Water is scarce and the fuel powering its generators is dwindling.

“The situation inside the hospital is miserable in every sense of the word,” he says. “The operating rooms don’t stop.”

Selmia estimated that 40,000 displaced civilians were sitting under the trees in the empty grounds surrounding the hospital, as well as inside the building’s lobby and corridors, hoping they would be protected there from the fighting.