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UN says Gaza hospitals in crisis
By TAMER SALIBA and PATRICK QUINN,Associated Press Writers AP - Saturday, January 17
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The medical system in Gaza is close to being overwhelmed and the Palestinian enclave faces a humanitarian catastrophe unless a cease-fire is reached soon, a senior U.N. health official said Friday.
Sixteen health facilities, including hospitals and clinics, have been damaged by shelling and fighting during the 3-week-old Israeli offensive, said Tony Laurance, head of the World Health Organization office in Gaza.
The attacks are a "grave violation of international humanitarian law," Laurance said by telephone. "If this continues it will be a humanitarian catastrophe, especially for the health care system."
On Friday, health workers went through the smoldering wreckage of the five-story Al Quds hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which was hit by three Israeli shells the day before.
There was nothing left to salvage inside the blackened hulk.
"They shelled the building, the hospital building. It caught fire. We tried to evacuate the sick people and the injured and the people who were there. Firefighters arrived and put out the fire, which burst into flames again and they put it out again and it came back for the third time," paramedic Ahmad Al-Haz told Associated Press Television News outside the building.
Khaled Abu Zeid, a medic reached by phone at the hospital Thursday, said the attack set the pharmacy ablaze and about 400 patients and staff were briefly trapped inside the main building.
Laurance said most of the patients were transferred to Gaza's City's already crowded Al Shifa hospital.
Israeli officials declined to comment. In the past, the Israeli army has accused Hamas militants of putting people at risk by either firing from densely populated areas or using civilians as human shields.
The Red Cross movement condemned the shelling of the hospital.
The damage caused was "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement issued in Geneva.
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and 4,900 wounded in the assault Israel launched against Gaza's Hamas rulers to halt Palestinian rocket fire on Israel. Thirteen Israelis have been killed and more than 70 wounded since the offensive began Dec. 27.
"These latest attacks on hospitals in Gaza are an outrage and have put at risk the lives of patients and staff and prevented access to health care for a system that is already coping with a flood of seriously wounded people," Laurance said.
He said 13 medical workers have been killed and 22 wounded during the offensive, and that 16 ambulances were destroyed.
"Emergency rooms, intensive care wards are already at maximum capacity. In terms of beds we are almost there," Laurance said.
Gaza's health system will face a long-term burden, he warned. "We have an extensive number of serious injuries, amputations and head injuries that will have serious long-term repercussions."
Laurance said Gaza does not need more doctors or medicine.
"More doctors are likely to be a hindrance rather than help. General doctors are not necessarily helpful," he said. "What we need is cash."
__
Quinn reported from Jerusalem.
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