Amid intense war between Israel and Hamas that has been going on for over a month now, doctors at Gaza City’s main medical centre, Al-Shifa hospital are struggling to keep the newborns alive as health facilities run out of resources due to Israel’s constant bombings in the besieged enclave
The hospital staff on Sunday said that three newborns had died while many others were at risk due to power outage while the Israeli forces have taken up position outside the hospital. The Israeli military says that Hamas fighters have their headquarters set up under the hospital, while the Palestinian militant group denies the claim.
In a desperate attempt at saving the lives of the newborns, doctors are wrapping the premature babies in foil and placing them next to hot water to keep them alive in “catastrophic” conditions, reported CNN.
The doctors had to move the babies by hand from the neonatal unit’s incubators to a different part of the hospital.
ALSO READ: 'Hospitals Must Be Protected', Says Biden As Israeli Tanks Encircle Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital
An Al Arabiya network reporter who was present inside the hospital told CNN that people were trapped there, too scared to flee due to the heavy fighting.
“There is no more water, food, milk for children and babies… the situation in the hospital is catastrophic,” the director of the medical centre, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told CNN on Monday.
Gaza’s health ministry director general Medhat Abbas told CNN that the hospital staff kept four infants alive after their mothers died by performing C-sections.
“Now they have to make it without their mothers and without electricity… Can you imagine that,” he said.
“When these babies are born prematurely, to sustain their lives they need to have the same temperature of their mother. This temperature can only be offered in the incubators, which are heated properly,” Abbas said.
The Palestinian coastal strip has already been suffering from impoverishment and the Israeli bombardments and blockade after October 7 has just added to the woes.
The doctors have refused to follow a mandatory order by the Israeli Defence Forces to evacuate the health facility as they said it would put the lives of 700 patients at risk.
“The problem is not the doctors, it’s the patients. And if they are left behind, they will die, and if they are transferred they will die on the way, this is the problem, we are talking about 700 patients,” Dr. Al-Bursh told CNN.