DUBAI, November 14. /TASS/. The bodies of at least 170 people who had died at Al-Shifa Hospital encircled by the Israeli military in the northern Gaza Strip were buried in a mass grave in the courtyard on Tuesday, the Palestinian enclave’s health minister Munir al-Boursh said in an interview with Al Hadath television.
"Israel has banned us from coordinating our efforts with staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to remove their bodies and bury them, so we will have to bury them in a mass grave on the hospital premises," the health official said. He cited the risk of spreading epidemics as at least 100 bodies were out in the courtyard decaying. There are another 70 bodies at the mortuary, he added.
"Hospitals have turned into morgues, as we have run out of food, water and fuel. We demand that humanitarian corridors be opened and legal fuel supplies be allowed to Al-Shifa Hospital," al-Boursh added.
On November 12, the Gaza Strip government said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had partially destroyed the intensive care unit at Al-Shifa Hospital, struck the top floor of the surgical building as well as the cardiology department and the maternity ward and shelled an oxygen line at the medical center. Two prematurely born babies and another six people died as a result. Later, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X (formerly Twitter) page that the hospital has been without electricity and water for three days already, the inpatient department is not working and the number of deaths among patients has increased significantly.
In turn, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the military would help evacuate children from the hospital’s pediatric unit as he emphasized that the building had not been sieged. However, the hospital’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, refuted that report.