GAZA CITY
The Israeli army has hit over 25 health facilities in the Gaza Strip since it commenced its military operation against the embattled Palestinian enclave earlier this month, a Palestinian health official said late Monday.
“Targeting the health facilities is an internationally condemned thing and a red line that should not be crossed,” Health Ministry Undersecretary Medhat Mehesen told a press conference in al-Shifa Hospital, the main medical facility in the Gaza Strip, late Monday.
“The Israeli troops are targeting the health facilities and ambulance crews since the beginning of the military operation,” he added.
Earlier Monday, four Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops shelled the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in in the central town of Der al-Balah.
Palestinian officials also accuse the Israeli troops of preventing ambulances from reaching devastated areas to extract the injured and bodies of the dead.
A medic was killed on Sunday when Israeli troops fired at Palestinian ambulances as they tried to get into the Shujaya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City to carry away the victims of a relentless Israeli shelling that left scores dead and hundreds injured.
“We are afraid to see a repeat of what happened to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital,” Mehesen said.
The official warned of a humanitarian and environmental crisis in Gaza if the Israeli troops continued to bar the Palestinian ambulances from reaching the affected areas to move the victims’ bodies.
He also called for international intervention to provide protection for the health facilities and medical crews against Israeli attacks.
Since July 7, Israel has pounded the embattled coastal enclave with fierce air and naval bombardments with the stated aim of halting Palestinian rocket fire.
On Thursday night, Israel stepped up its offensive to include ground operations, sending thousands of troops into the embattled Palestinian territory.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire rockets at Israeli cities in response to the ongoing Israeli attacks.
At least 583 Palestinians have been killed – mostly civilians – and more than 3550 injured in the unrelenting Israeli attacks on the besieged coastal enclave.
Israel's military operation, dubbed "Operation Protective Edge," is the self-proclaimed Jewish state's third major offensive against the densely-populated Gaza Strip – which is home to some 1.8 million Palestinians – within the last six years.
By Mustafa Haboosh
www.aa.com.tr/en
