AT least 150 people have been killed in two days of intense air strikes on Gaza, including at least 73 people reported killed throughout Friday and 77 confirmed killed on Thursday.
Also, Amnesty International said Israel’s detention of Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safia is emblematic of the “genocidal intent” in Israel’s broader attempts to “annihilate” Gaza’s healthcare sector.
This is as Israel is forcing two hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate under threat of attack.
Israeli forces have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital, where many staff and patients sought shelter after nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was destroyed in an Israeli raid last week.
Late on Friday, a forced order to evacuate was also issued for the al-Awda Hospital, where 100 people are believed to be sheltering.
Dr Mohammad Abu Tayyem, a paediatrician at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, said that based on the number of babies already in intensive care, he expects that more children will be admitted to the hospital emergency departments seeking treatment for hypothermia.
As cold weather hits Gaza, Abu Tayyem said hypothermia will affect more children due to the number of babies being born prematurely in the war zone and those born with low birth weight.
“All the small babies – the premature babies and the low-birth-weight babies – are more vulnerable to hypothermia,” he said, telling of how three children, who had no history of chronic illness, were brought dead to the emergency room at the hospital.
“They just came with low body temperature [without] any history of medical complications,” he said.
At least seven infants have died of hypothermia so far in Gaza and aid groups are warning of the urgent need for adequate shelter in the territory, access to blankets and warm clothes as well as food and medicine, supplies of which have all been blocked by Israel’s siege of the territory.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 45,658 Palestinians and wounded 108,583 since October 7, 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day and more than 200 were taken captive.
