A joint UN humanitarian assessment team conducted a visit to Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, revealing signs of shelling and gunfire and described it as a ‘death zone’. “Signs of shelling and gunfire were evident. The team saw a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital and was told more than 80 people were buried there,” the WHO statement said on Sunday.
The team, led by WHO and comprised of public health experts, logistics officers, and security staff from various U.N. departments, had limited access to the hospital on Saturday, spending only an hour inside due to security concerns.
The assessment team's observations painted a dire picture of Al Shifa Hospital, describing it as a "death zone" where the situation was deemed "desperate." The hospitalwas found to be essentially non-functional due to a severe shortage of essential resources such as clean water, fuel, and medicine.
Earlier, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed on Saturday that most patients and staff at Gaza's Shifa Hospital have been evacuated. In a recorded conversation released to the press, the hospital's director informed an Arab-speaking officer from the IDF's Coordination and Liaison Administration that patients able to evacuate have been transferred, and a majority of the staff has also left. The remaining patients are too ill to be evacuated.
During the conversation, the IDF officer assured coordination for evacuation when medically feasible. The hospital director mentioned that Shifa's medical teams left on their own, and he lacks control over their decisions. The recording did not specify the exact number of patients or staff remaining at the hospital.
Contrary to Palestinian claims of IDF ordering evacuation, the recording indicates that the evacuation was initiated based on medical considerations. The IDF disclosed delivering 6,000 liters of water and over 2,300 kg of food, including fish, canned goods, bread, spreads, and dates, to Shifa Hospital.
Shifa Hospital, located in Gaza's North Rimal neighborhood and with 570 beds, is the largest medical center in Gaza, serving the medical needs of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Originally built by the British in 1946, Israel renovated and expanded Shifa in the 1980s as part of an effort to enhance living conditions in Gaza.
Earlier on Saturday, various media outlets reported that Hamas has ordered evacuation of Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital ‘in next hour’, but soon IDF took to X and refuted such claims. Israeli Army said, at no point IDF had ordered for evacuation.
Meanwhile,Israeli air strikes on residential blocks in south Gaza resulted in the death of at least 47 people on Saturday, as reported by Reuters. Simultaneously, the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency indicated that additional casualties occurred at a school in the north, which was serving as a shelter for displaced civilians.
Israel had previously issued warnings for civilians to relocate as part of its preparations for an offensive against Hamas in the southern part of the enclave, following its actions in the north.
"Receiving horrifying images & footage of scores of people killed and injured in another @UNRWA school sheltering thousands of displaced in the north of the Gaza Strip," stated UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on the social media platform X.