Gaza hospitals turning into graves, situation 'more than catastrophic': Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warns that the humanitarian situation is "more than catastrophic" in the Gaza Strip, as Israel’s relentless bombing and severe fuel shortages are turning the hospitals into "graves" across the besieged territory.

"The humanitarian situation in Gaza is more than catastrophic in the light of 12 hospitals and 32 healthcare centers becoming out of service due to lack of fuel or being bombed," Mey Sayegh, head of IFRC communications, said on Friday.

The lack of fuel in Gaza would affect the security of water for people, lead to diseases and epidemics, and affect the humanitarian operations across Gaza, Sayegh stressed.

She said that the IFRC officials "have appealed since the start of the conflict to the necessity of allowing fuel entry into Gaza."

Sayegh also called for protecting the civilians who deliver the humanitarian aid, as she said four staff from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society were killed while on duty.

'Deepening humanitarian catastrophe' 

Meanwhile, a war team of International Committee of the Red Cross medics managed to enter Gaza on Friday for the first time since Israel launched the bombing campaign against the Gaza Strip 21 days ago.

"Our surgical team and medical supplies will help relieve the extreme pressure on Gaza's doctors and nurses. But safe, sustained humanitarian access is urgently needed," Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, said in a statement.

"This humanitarian catastrophe is deepening by the hour."

The occupying regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 and blocked water, food, and electricity to one of the most densely populated places in the world.

The airstrikes have so far damaged six hospitals, nine primary health care centers, and a desalination plant that supplies clean water to 250,000 people in Gaza, according to the United Nations.

A total of 3,038 Palestinian children have tragically lost their lives, according to the latest death toll that has surpassed 7,400. 

The UN warned Friday that many more Palestinians will die due to catastrophic shortages of food, water and medicine.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned his agency’s operations are crumbling as Gazans starve.

He described the regime's siege as “collective punishment” of more than 2 million people — a majority of them women and children.

The raids started after an unprecedented military offensive, dubbed the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation, was launched by Hamas-led resistance forces against occupied territories.

Palestinians said the attack, in which some 1,400 Israeli forces and settlers were killed, was a response to increased Israeli violence against Palestinians and the desecration of al-Aqsa Mosque by occupiers. 

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