The Hamas government’s health ministry on Monday accused Israel’s armed forces of “bombarding and destroying” the hospital in leveled Beit Lahia, the only one left in operation in the northern Gaza Strip, citing “numerous injuries among the medical staff.” and patients”.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said that the Israeli armed forces “continue to bombard heavily and destroy the hospital”, targeting “all sections” of it.

The director of the hospital where he is, Hussam Abu Shafia, spoke of a “catastrophic” situation after bombings without any warning.

“The third floor” of the hospital “was hit again, injuring six children,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said via X.

The Israeli army limited itself to stating that it was still verifying this information.

Earlier, he announced that he was “operating against infrastructure and terrorists in the northern and central part” of the Palestinian enclave, an area where he had launched a new attack since October 6, in order to prevent an attempt to regroup units of the military arm of the Palestinian Islamist movement that was underway, according to him.

UNRWA was also officially banned

Defying international outcry, Israel also officially informed the UN yesterday that it had banned UNRWA, an agency described as “the backbone” of humanitarian aid to refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories.

A week after Israel’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a law banning any activity on the country’s territory by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the Israeli Foreign Ministry “notified the UN of cancellation of the agreement between Israel and UNRWA,” according to his statement.

This agreement was signed in 1967, the year the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem was imposed, where UNRWA provided for decades absolutely necessary assistance in the fields of education, health, social services , distributed food and other items.

Israel, for which UNRWA had been turned into a black sheep for a long time, once again accused “officials of the organization of participating in the massacre of October 7” 2023.

“If this law is implemented, it risks causing the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in Gaza, of which UNRWA is the backbone,” warned Jonathan Fowler, a spokesman for the agency.

“There is simply no alternative to UNRWA,” reiterated Dr. Tedros via X, stressing that banning it “will not make Israel safer”, instead it will “only” do “increase the suffering” of the Palestinians.

In its notification, Israel reminds that the ban on all UNRWA activities will come into effect after a “period of three months”.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the UN General Assembly is expected to meet exclusively on the agency’s case.

“Currently the Palestinian people are almost entirely dependent on aid coming from abroad, above all from UNRWA, and ending it would kill the entire Palestinian people,” commented Abdel Karim Kalab, to Khan Younis. in the southern Gaza Strip.

For Hamas, Israel’s decision is part of the “attempt to deny refugees the right to return to their homes.”

Diplomatic fever alongside the bloodshed

With US elections now underway, diplomatic efforts to end the hostilities have all proved fruitless.

Hamas announced yesterday that it had held talks with rival Fatah faction in Cairo over the war in the Gaza Strip and efforts to forge a Palestinian national consensus.

For his part, during his telephone conversation with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelati, the head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, “”noted that Hamas once again refused to release even a limited number of civilians to ensure a cease-fire. and relief for the population in Gaza,” according to a bulletin released by his State Department services.

A Hamas official said on Friday that the Palestinian Islamist movement refuses to even consider a proposal for a short-term truce in the Gaza Strip drawn up by countries mediating indirect negotiations with Israel, since it does not meet its demand for a permanent ceasefire to be declared. .

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its incursion into the south of its territory killed 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, which included hostages killed under captivity or were already dead when taken to Gaza. Of the 251 people abducted, 97 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip, but 34 of the latter have been declared dead by the Israeli army.

Devastating, large-scale Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have claimed the lives of at least 43,374 people, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas health ministry, which is deemed reliable by the United Nations. The vast majority of the inhabitants of the small besieged enclave have been displaced.