An Israeli airstrike today completely destroyed the cardiology department of al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip that is being pounded and besieged by Israel.

“The two-story building of the cardiology department was completely destroyed by an airstrike,” said Yousef Abu Ris, deputy health minister of the Hamas government in Gaza.

Earlier, Doctors of the World had made a dramatic appeal to stop the attacks on the hospital, where patients and babies have already died due to the power cut.

“Those who try to leave are shot – Dozens of bodies around the hospital”

AFP notes that it was unable to confirm this hit on the ground, but at least one eyewitness who was in the hospital confirmed the raids and the damage.
So far there is no reaction from the Israeli army.

“There was a new blow to the surgical department and that of outpatient clinics“, the Palestinian official added, saying that “five shells have been fired since the morning at the hospital complex”.

“There are two (Israeli) tanks the cannons of which point towards the interior of the maternity wardat the southern entrance to the al Shifa complex,” explained Abu Ris. As well as “two tanks outside the west entrance and two tanks inside this entrance“.

They are throwing at everyone who is trying to leave all the buildings of the hospital complex,” added Abu Ris, who did not give an account.

The Israeli army confirms that it has deployed around the hospital, but assures that it is allowing the exit to the east, which is open to the thousands of displaced people who have taken refuge in the hospital.

Around the huge hospital complex, “there are dozens of dead bodies on the streets, hundreds of injuredAbu Rhys further said.

His ministry has stopped publishing a daily death toll since Friday, saying it could no longer establish contact with all hospitals and that it could not send its ambulances because of the violence of the fighting and the casualties.

In al-Sifa, there are “650 patients, some forty children in incubators, all threatened with death, and 15,000 displaced.”said Abu Ris.

Since yesterday, Saturday, the electricity has been cut in al-Sifa and dozens of babies in incubators and patients in the intensive care unit are now at risk of death, according to several international NGOs.
“Nurses are doing breathing massages with their hands on the babies” who were born prematurely, said Abu Ris, who said he feared many of them would die within hours.