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Patients, staff and families sheltering in the last remaining hospital in central Gaza are being forcibly displaced as the threat of a raid by Israeli forces looms large and Israel orders evacuations in the areas surrounding the crucial medical facility.
In recent days, Palestinians have been fleeing al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital as Israel ordered evacuations in nearby neighborhoods of Deir el-Balah previously labeled as part of the “safe zone” last week and on Sunday.
Though the hospital technically isn’t in the evacuation area drawn by Israel, Israeli officials have said that “forces will operate aggressively” in the areas surrounding it. Further, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported that Israeli forces struck an area 250 meters away from the hospital, or just over a tenth of a mile, on Sunday, triggering panic.
The hospital is nearly empty now with only a few dozen occupants left, as many have fled on foot, some wheeling patients out in their beds. Over 600 patients were being treated at the hospital before the forced evacuations, and it was acting as a shelter for many families with nowhere left to go.
Patients there have been forced to make an impossible choice: risk death at the hands of the Israeli military or flee and face potential complications from whatever condition landed them in the hospital, likely caused by Israel’s genocide.
“Our fate is to die,” Fatimah al-Attar told Associated Press, fighting back tears while evacuating. “There is no place for us to go. There is no safe place.”
MSF, which helps support the hospital, says that it is “considering whether to suspend wound care for the time being, while trying to maintain life-saving treatment.”
Al-Aqsa was one of only roughly 16 hospitals still partially functional in Gaza as Israel has systematically destroyed the health system across the region. Many of these hospitals are small, able to treat only a few dozen patients at a time; al-Aqsa is one of the largest hospitals that hasn’t been thoroughly destroyed by Israeli forces.
The Israeli military’s raids of hospitals in Gaza over the past 10 months have been horrific. After Israel’s raid of al-Shifa Hospital — previously the largest hospital in Gaza — this spring, Palestinian officials uncovered three mass graves there. In total, over 500 bodies were found buried in seven mass graves discovered in the area after Israel’s assault.
Though Palestinians are evacuating al-Aqsa, there is essentially nowhere left in Gaza for them to go.
The so-called humanitarian zone in Gaza, which Israel has bombed despite labeling it as safe, is at capacity. The “safe” zone only encompasses 11 percent of Gaza’s land, while humanitarian groups estimate 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced at least once. Aid groups say that the “safe” zone is so crowded that even roads are blocked by tents, making the delivery of humanitarian aid nearly impossible.
“This is a complete stripping of humanity. A never-ending tragedy,” said the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) of the evacuations. “Families across the Gaza Strip continue to be forced to flee, forced to leave their homes and belongings behind. All they can now do is try to stay alive. People have lost absolutely everything.”
The agency noted that Israel’s assault on Deir el-Balah has significantly reduced the water capacity there, leaving a shortfall of water of 85 percent.
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