a famine.
Over the past week, Israeli strikes destroyed at least two clinics at opposite ends of Gaza City and forced two others to shut down, including a children’s hospital and a specialized eye center, according to the U.N. The Jordanian government said a field hospital it had run was evacuated as Israeli troops closed in.
The U.N. says 27 other medical stations and primary health care centers in Gaza City, many of them crucial in malnutrition treatment, were forced to suspend or shut service in September.
Nearly 100 patients fled Wednesday and Thursday from Gaza City’s main hospital, Shifa, as Israeli tanks approached. Fearful of getting caught up in a raid, many staff stopped showing up to work.
“The fear is real,” said Hassan AlShaer, medical director at Shifa.
More than 160 medical workers from Gaza were estimated to be in Israeli detention as of February, according to rights groups. Israel said the detentions are carried out in accordance with the law, saying some were involved in “terrorists activities” or were members of Hamas.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army claimed on social media that gunmen were operating inside Shifa. It attached a grainy video it said showed gunmen opening fire. The AP couldn’t verify the claim and doctors at Shifa denied it, calling it a pretext to raid the hospital.
On Saturday, the Israeli army said it’s allowing humanitarian convoys of international aid organizations and health personnel to reach the Shifa Hospital area, even though it’s “an active combat zone.”
Israeli troops raided al-Quds for a week in November 2023, temporarily shutting it down. Parts of it were destroyed, and at least one civilian was killed, the Red Crescent said then.
The U.N. and some human rights groups say Israel has systematically targeted hospitals, using direct strikes, siege tactics and raids.
Once a hospital is out of service, nearby residents typically relocate, said Azra Zyada, a U.K.-based health systems analyst who works closely with medical teams in Gaza.
Before the latest offensive on Gaza City, staff at al-Quds began discharging non-critical patients, fearing for their safety, Vaughan said. They also diverted traffic away from the hospital as Israeli drones fired at surrounding buildings, she said.
Vaughan shot cellphone video of warplanes and projectiles descending on the city and around the hospital.
In one, her room shakes, and huge plumes of smoke block the view from her window. In another, from one of the hospital’s lower floors, a child carrying a water jerrycan as large as himself stops as an explosion rocks the walls.
Last week, hundreds of Palestinian families who had sheltered in and around the hospital fled, many after previously fleeing Israeli forces advancing from the north.
On Saturday night, Vaughan said a caravan that drove near the hospital came under fire. A teenager sustained a superficial head wound, she said.
He may have been the last patient to be admitted to al-Quds.
A day later, Vaughan shadowed the nurses of the neonatal unit. She held “skin to skin” one of the two remaining babies — just 13 days old — to try to soothe her. The baby’s heart rate dropped dangerously low as explosions went off nearby, Vaughan said.
From her fifth-floor bedroom window, Vaughan recorded nearby strikes.
“They just hit the hospital again,” Vaughan said in a video. She recorded an Apache helicopter strike in the distance.
On the fourth floor, there were glass shards on some beds from shattered windows. Fresh blood stained a deserted mattress. Vaughan filmed an empty hospital floor that was cleared out.
“The floor was overflowing with patients in the halls and now it is desolate because everybody had to flee,” she said in the video shot Monday.
For her own safety, Vaughan moved that day to the basement.
The next day, soon after Vaughan left, her colleagues reported to her that Israeli military vehicles had approached the southern gate of the hospital.
Magdy reported from Cairo. El Deeb reported from Beirut. Sam Metz contributed from Rabat, Morocco.
