Israel has continued its bloody war in Gaza despite the International Court of Justice calling on Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. Thousands of civilians were trapped in southern Gaza as Israel continued its attacks on the Strip on Jan. 27, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The growing alarm has focused on Khan Younis, the biggest city in Gaza’s south, where the two main hospitals were barely functioning under the weight of the relentless Israeli bombardment and the press of thousands in need. Witnesses reported more overnight strikes on Khan Younis, and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said some of the dead and wounded had been taken to the city’s barely functioning Al Amal Hospital.
Fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters has raged for days around Khan Younis, forcing tens of thousands to flee farther south to Rafah on the border with Egypt, AFP reports further.
In a statement issued yesterday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), warned that Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest remaining health facility in the Gaza Strip, can no longer provide vital medical services, leaving many wounded Palestinians with no options for treatment amid ongoing heavy fighting and bombing in Khan Younis. “The hospital’s surgical capacity is now almost nonexistent, and the handful of medical staff remaining in the hospital must contend with very low supplies that are insufficient to handle large influxes of wounded people,” reported MSF.
The statement notes that yesterday’s ICJ ruling did not order a ceasefire, but “Only a sustained ceasefire can stop the loss of more civilian lives, and enable the flow of humanitarian assistance and vital supplies for the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.”
World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media platform X that 350 patients and 5,000 people displaced by the fighting remained at the hospital and that fighting in the vicinity continued. He said the Nasser Hospital was “running out of food, fuel and supplies” and called for an immediate ceasefire so they could be replenished.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported yesterday that the death count in Gaza was up to 26,083, with another 64,487 wounded.
