Tel Aviv: The Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday said that it was forced to bury the dead bodies of people who died following Israel bombing inside the hospital premises.
The hospital, in a statement, said that the bodies were in a state of decomposition and hence they could not keep it and all the bodies were buried in a mass grave.
The Director of the hospital said that the graves they were digging were small and could not accommodate all the dead.
The hospital authorities said that they had to conduct surgery for emergency cases without anesthesia and without electricity.
They said that the Israel Army has agreed to shift a small number of pre-mature babies out of the hospital following intervention by the International Council of Red Cross.
The hospital authorities said that they wanted a safe evacuation of all the wounded and injured from the hospital.
Incubators out of fuel, babies shifted
In a heartbreaking move, Al-Shifa hospital authorities had no choice but to shift the 39 premature babies who were heavily dependent on incubators after the machines ran out of fuel.
Tiny babies, who need oxygen to survive, are now being placed alongside each other in a makeshift bed surrounded by aluminium foil, in order to keep them warm.
Dr Medhat Abbas, a director of Al-Shifa said, “To sustain their lives they need the same temperature as the mother. This can only happen with incubators which keep the babies warm and which provide a special light to protect them from jaundice and artificial respiration if it’s needed.”
“Now, because of the shortage of electricity, our doctors have gathered them in these ordinary beds and put aluminium foil around to keep them warm. It’s becoming colder here in Gaza; for that reason, without proper temperature control, some of them could die,” he said.
The gates of Al-Shifa Hospital are now surrounded by Israeli tanks and troops. Hospital members and patients are not allowed to leave. According to a surgeon who recorded a message, he said, “There’s also a sniper who attacked patients, they have gunshot wounds, we operated on three of them … The situation is very bad, it is inhuman. It’s a closed area, no one knows about us.”
(With inputs from IANS)
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