LONDON, May 8. /TASS/. The Emirati Maternity Hospital, the main maternity hospital in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, has stopped admitting patients due to Israel’s military operation, Reuters reported citing the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The news agency said that the hospital had been handling about 85 out of a daily total of 180 births in Gaza prior to an escalation of fighting on the outskirts of Rafah.

On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that Israel’s military had seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt. The IDF added that it had begun a targeted counterterrorism operation in eastern Rafah and informed about strikes on Hamas military facilities in that area and the elimination of 20 armed radicals.