24 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza non-functional: UN

At least 24 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are non-functional, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The health system in Gaza is collapsing due to ongoing hostilities and access constraints, resulting in a growing number of hospitals that have been rendered out of service,” the document said.

“As of 27 March, according to WHO, 24 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are non-functional, two are minimally functional in northern Gaza, and 10 are partially functional including four in northern Gaza and six in southern Gaza,” according to the report.

Israeli forces pounding besieged Gaza and fought Hamas around several hospitals, despite a UN Security Council demand for a ceasefire.

Talks in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal involving US and Egyptian mediators have brought no result so far, with Israel and the Palestinian group blaming each other.

Tensions have risen between Israel and its top ally the United States over dire food shortages in Gaza and the soaring civilian death toll in the offensive that began on October 7.

Israeli forces have battled Hamas in and around three Gaza hospitals, raising fears for patients, medical staff and displaced people inside them.

Fighting has raged since last week around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, and more recently near two hospitals in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, Al-Amal and Nasser.

The army and Shin Bet security service said they were “continuing to conduct precise operational activities” in both cities “while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment”.

The army said dozens of Hamas members have been killed “in the area” of Al-Shifa and “hundreds of terrorists have been apprehended”.

Meanwhile, a UN expert who determined that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza on Wednesday said that she had faced threats over her work but insisted it only made her more determined to push ahead.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said this week there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel was committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel, which has long been highly critical of Albanese and her mandate, denounced her report as an “obscene inversion of reality”.