A hospital in Gaza is besieged and cut off from electricity – patients have died, according to the hospital director

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has been suffering from a power outage since Saturday morning after the hospital’s generators ran out of fuel. There is also a shortage of water and medical supplies, according to the hospital administration, which indicated that all operations have been postponed.

Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salamiya told Al Jazeera on Saturday: We are completely isolated from the outside world.

– In an already fragile situation, we see that the humanitarian situation is worsening hour after hour, says Frida Lagerholm, communications director for Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden.

Infants are being cared for – equipment is not working

After the power outage, a number of patients died at Al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday, including a premature baby who was in an incubator in the hospital’s neonatal ward, where about 40 babies are being cared for. This is what Muhammad Abu Salamiya told the Associated Press.

– He says the medical equipment stopped working.

Several hospitals are besieged

– Historically, this hospital is one of the few places in Gaza where civilians were able to provide safety during previous wars. Now it doesn’t seem like that, says SVT’s foreign correspondent, Stefan Oseberg, who is in Jerusalem.

The Israeli army, the Israel Defense Forces, is said to have surrounded several hospitals in Gaza, and heavy fighting on the ground has been reported from several directions. The Israeli army denied bombing Al-Shifa Hospital, but said that there was fighting taking place near it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said responsibility for all civilian casualties lies with Hamas, CNN reported. He also repeated accusations that Hamas is using civilians in Gaza as human shields. The Israeli army has repeatedly said that Hamas uses hospitals as hiding places for terrorists.

SVT Nyheter searched for representatives of the Israeli army, the Israel Defense Forces, to no avail.