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.



Israeli Military Says it Struck 'Key' Hamas Figure in Lebanon's Tripoli

People gather near a damaged car after the Israeli military said in a statement that it struck a "key" figure from Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Ayrounieh, northern Lebanon July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Walid Saleh
People gather near a damaged car after the Israeli military said in a statement that it struck a "key" figure from Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Ayrounieh, northern Lebanon July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Walid Saleh
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Israeli Military Says it Struck 'Key' Hamas Figure in Lebanon's Tripoli

People gather near a damaged car after the Israeli military said in a statement that it struck a "key" figure from Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Ayrounieh, northern Lebanon July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Walid Saleh
People gather near a damaged car after the Israeli military said in a statement that it struck a "key" figure from Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Ayrounieh, northern Lebanon July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Walid Saleh

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had struck "key" figure from Palestinian militant group Hamas near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, the first targeted killing in the area for several months.

In a statement, Israel's military did not give the identity of the targeted person. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

Lebanese state media said a car had been hit near Tripoli and the health ministry reported two people were killed and three others wounded, without identifying them, Reuters reported.

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups maintain a presence in various areas of Lebanon, mostly in camps that have housed displaced Palestinians for decades.

Since Hamas' cross-border attack from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel in 2023, Israel has carried out targeted strikes on Lebanese armed group Hezbollah as well as members of Palestinian factions in Lebanon.

Hamas' deputy chief was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs in early 2024, and other strikes hit Palestinian camps in northern Lebanon.

A US-brokered ceasefire last year ended the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, though Israel has continued to carry out strikes on what it says are Hezbollah arms depots and fighters, mostly in southern Lebanon.

Tuesday's strike near Tripoli was the first time a targeted assassination had taken place in the area since the truce.

Meanwhile, US envoy Thomas Barrack continued a two-day visit to Lebanon to discuss disarming Hezbollah and other militant groups.