"We fear for the lives of patients and children in the intensive care and pediatric wards," the Hamas press office said.
Dozens of people were killed in the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas, which is being shelled by the Israeli army and faces another total telecommunications blackout today, the 99th day of the war between Israel and the Islamist Palestinian movement.
Since yesterday, Friday, the conflict has spread to Yemen, with US and British strikes against Houthi rebels attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea in "solidarity" with Gaza. The US military announced that it had fired again overnight at a radar installation.
In the field, an AFP correspondent reported heavy overnight shelling in the southern Gaza Strip, in the major city of Khan Younis, which has become the epicenter of the fighting, and in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have arrived seeking shelter.
The Israeli strikes killed more than 60 people, most of them women and children, while dozens were injured, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas, the movement that has controlled this small besieged and densely populated Palestinian territory since 2007.
At Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, residents are trying to identify their loved ones in a makeshift morgue, where bodies are even lying on the ground.
The Israeli military said it destroyed dozens of rocket launchers and killed four "terrorists" in Khan Younis with airstrikes in separate operations.
"The night was very difficult, we spent it packed together with hundreds of displaced people in the corridors of the maternity ward" of Al-Nasser Hospital, says Nabila Abu Zaged, a 40-year-old mother.
The rain and cold in the area make everyday life even more difficult for her family, who have set up a tent in the hospital yard, she explains. "But where shall we go?"
Telecommunications cut
The humanitarian disaster, which international humanitarian organizations have been denouncing, has worsened since yesterday, Friday, due to the complete blackout of telecommunications and internet services in Gaza – an outage that the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel attributes to the Israelis, the who "shut down the servers".
Such disruptions have occurred in Gaza since the start of hostilities, and each time rescuers complain about their impact on the coordination of aid services.
"Communication with our groups in Gaza has been completely cut off," the Palestinian Red Crescent announced yesterday, Friday.
The lack of fuel also caused the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital's main generator in Deir al-Ballah (in the center of the Gaza Strip) to shut down, according to a source in the Hamas Health Ministry.
"We fear for the lives of patients and children in the intensive care and pediatric wards," the Hamas press office said.
Source: ertnews.gr