WHO: Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital a 'Death Zone', Urges Full Evacuation

Al-Shifa hospital - File Photo/Reuters
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WHO: Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital a 'Death Zone', Urges Full Evacuation

Al-Shifa hospital - File Photo/Reuters

The World Health Organization said Sunday it had led an assessment mission to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and determined it was a "death zone", urging a full evacuation.

"WHO and partners are urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of the remaining patients, staff and their families," the United Nations health agency said in a statement, adding that 291 patients and 25 health workers remained inside the hospital.

WHO said it had headed a joint UN team, including public health experts, logistics officers and security staff from a range of agencies on a short and "very high-risk" mission into the hospital on Saturday.

The assessment team had gone into Al-Shifa after the Israeli military had earlier ordered the evacuation of some 2,500 displaced people sheltering on the hospital grounds, WHO said.

"They, along with a number of mobile patients and hospital staff, had already vacated the facility by the time of the team's arrival," the statement said, AFP.

Columns of sick and injured -- some of them amputees -- were seen making their way out of Al-Shifa hospital Saturday towards the seafront without ambulances along with displaced people, doctors and nurses, as loud explosions were heard around the complex.

The UN assessment team was meanwhile only able to spend an hour inside the hospital due to the security situation.

The team, WHO said, described the hospital as a "death zone" and the situation as "desperate".

"Signs of shelling and gunfire were evident. The team saw a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital and were told more than 80 people were buried there," the statement said.

A lack of clean water, fuel, medicines, food and other essential aid over six weeks had caused the largest and most advanced hospital in Gaza to basically stop functioning as a medical facility, WHO said.

"Corridors and the hospital grounds were filled with medical and solid waste, increasing the risk of infection."

Among the patients remaining in the hospital were 32 babies "in extremely critical condition", WHO said.

There were also two people in intensive care without ventilation, 22 dialysis patients whose access to life-saving treatment was severely compromised, and many trauma victims.

Several patients had died in the past two to three days "due to the shutting down of medical services", WHO said.

The UN health agency said that given the state of the hospital, the team was asked to evacuate health workers and patients to other facilities.

"We are working with partners to develop an urgent evacuation plan and ask for full facilitation of this plan," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, former Twitter.

"We continue to call for protection of health and of civilians," he said, lamenting that "the current situation is unbearable and unjustifiable. Ceasefire. NOW."

WHO said additional missions would go in "over the next 24–72 hours, pending guarantees of safe passage" to help transport patients to the Nasser Medical Complex and European Gaza Hospital in southern Gaza.

It stressed though that those hospitals were already working beyond capacity and the new referrals would "further strain overburdened health staff and resources".

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its militants carried out unprecedented attacks inside Israel on October 7.

The army's relentless air and ground campaign has since killed 12,300 people, most of them civilians, including more than 5,000 children, according to the Hamas government which has ruled Gaza since 2007.



Gaza Ceasefire Still Elusive as Negotiators Try to Hammer out Deal

 This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Gaza Ceasefire Still Elusive as Negotiators Try to Hammer out Deal

 This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Negotiators were trying to hammer out the final details of a complex, phased ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday after marathon talks in Qatar aiming to end a conflict that has inflicted widespread death and destruction and upended the Middle East.

More than eight hours of talks in Doha had fueled optimism. Officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US as well as Israel and Hamas said on Tuesday that an agreement for a truce in the besieged Palestinian enclave and the release of hostages was closer than ever.

But a senior Hamas official told Reuters late on Tuesday that the Palestinian group had not yet delivered its response because it was still waiting for Israel to submit maps showing how its forces would withdraw from Gaza.

During months of on-off talks to achieve a truce in the devastating 15-month-old war, both sides have previously said they were close to a ceasefire only to hit last-minute obstacles. The broad outlines of the current deal have been in place since mid-2024.

If successful, the planned phased ceasefire could halt fighting that has decimated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, displaced most of the enclave's pre-war population of 2.3 million and is still killing dozens of people a day.

That in turn could ease tensions across the wider Middle East, where the war has fueled conflict in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out war between Israel and Iran.

Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed across its borders on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 46,700 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave.

Palestinians were once again hoping the latest talks would deliver some relief from Israeli airstrikes, and ease a humanitarian crisis.

"We are waiting for the ceasefire and the truce. May God complete it for us in goodness, bless us with peace, and allow us to return to our homes," said Amal Saleh, 54, a Gazan displaced by the war.

"Even if the schools are bombed, destroyed, and ruined, we just want to know that we are finally living in peace."

Under the plan, Israel would recover around 100 remaining hostages and bodies from among those captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas that precipitated the war. In return it would free Palestinian detainees.

The latest draft is complicated and sensitive. Under its terms, the first steps would feature a six-week initial ceasefire.

The plan also includes a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from central Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to north Gaza.

The deal would also require Hamas to release 33 Israeli hostages along with other steps.

The draft stipulates negotiations over a second phase of the agreement to begin by the 16th day of phase one. Phase two includes the release of all remaining hostages, a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

Even if the warring sides agree to the deal on the table, that agreement still needs further negotiation before there is a final ceasefire and the release of all the hostages

If it all goes smoothly, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel still need to agree on a vision for post-war Gaza, a massive task involving security guarantees for Israel and billions of dollars in investment for rebuilding.

ISRAELI ATTACKS

Despite the efforts to reach a ceasefire, the Israeli military, the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency and the air force attacked about 50 targets throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours, Shin Bet and the military said in a statement on Wednesday.

Israeli strikes killed at least 13 Palestinians across the enclave. Those included seven people who were in a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, and six others killed in separate airstrikes on houses in Deir Al-Balah, Bureij camp and Rafah, medics said.

Families of hostages in Israel were caught between hope and despair.

"We can't miss this moment. This is the last moment; we can save them," said Hadas Calderon, whose husband Ofer and children Sahar and Erez were abducted.

Israel says 98 hostages are being held in Gaza, about half of whom are believed to be alive. They include Israelis and non-Israelis. Of the total, 94 were seized in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and four have been held in Gaza since 2014.