The director of Kamal Antoine Hospital, in the northern Gaza Strip, warned yesterday Sunday that the lives of more than a hundred patients are at risk due to the power outages.

“Electricity and water outages persist and we are making an urgent appeal for help to the international community,” said Dr. Husham Abu Safiyya.

“The situation is extremely dangerous. We have patients in the intensive care unit and others awaiting surgeries. Access to the surgeries is only possible after we have electricity and oxygen again,” he stressed.

Dr. Safiya clarified that “112 wounded, among them six in intensive care units and 14 children” are currently being treated in Kamal Antoine. Continued shelling near the hospital “prevents us from proceeding with operations” and treatment, he added.

On Friday, civil protection in the Gaza Strip reported deadly shelling around the hospital and direct fire by Israel’s armed forces against Kamal Antoine. The Israeli army categorically denied the complaint.

An Israeli military spokesman said forces were continuing to conduct operations “against terrorists in the Jabalia area,” including areas “near the Kamal Antoine hospital.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) described as “extremely alarming” the situation at the specific health facility, one of the few that remains partially operational in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, which has suffered massive destruction after 14 months of war triggered by the attack of Hamas against southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.

Last Saturday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said via X that an international medical team deployed by his services “was forced to leave urgently” while “displaced persons, medical staff and many injured patients began to flee” as well.

“Camal Antoine Hospital is barely operational” and “the latest episode further threatens its ability to remain operational,” added the agency’s director general.

The Israeli army has been concentrating its operations in the northern part of the Gaza Strip for the past two months. Israeli government spokesman David Mencer spoke of operations in areas where “Hamas and (Palestinian) Islamic Jihad,” another armed movement, are trying to regroup.