GAZA, (PIC)
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has announced that Al-Amal Hospital, which it runs in southern Gaza, has been out of service following an Israeli military siege.
“The hospital is now out of service after the Israeli occupation forces forced staff members and patients to evacuate the facility and blocked its entrances with mounds of dirt,” the Red Crescent explained.
According to the Red Crescent, a total of 27 employees, six patients and one caregiver were evacuated from the hospital in coordination with the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs and the Red Cross.
The Red Crescent was also able to get bodies of two civilian martyrs out of the hospital, namely staff member Amir Abu Aisha and another civilian. Both were shot dead by Israeli gunfire inside the facility.
There is no information if there are still other people inside Al-Amal Hospital.
In a related context, BBC website said that Red Crescent staff and patients from Al-Amal Hospital in southern Gaza were trapped in ambulances for 20 hours after Israeli troops forced them to evacuate.
BBC quoted a Red Crescent source as saying that Israeli forces shot and wounded two people who tried to clear a road as they left overnight, forcing the ambulances to turn back and wait outside the hospital.
On Sunday, the Red Crescent reported that Israeli forces were besieging both Al-Amal and the nearby Nasser Hospital, amid intense artillery, aerial and shooting attacks on the facility and the neighborhoods around them.
Meanwhile, resistance fighters continue to attack Israeli forces around the besieged Hospital of Al-Shifa in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army already killed hundreds of civilians and detained about 500 others during its ongoing raid, which started about a week ago.
