Most of Gaza hospitals stopped functioning: Palestinian health ministry

The health ministry added that 71% of all primary-care facilities have closed due to damage or lack of fuel, adding that hospitals that remain open are limited in what they can provide and are gradually shutting down their wards.

Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Gaza’s largest medical facility, closed six operating rooms “due to inadequacy of supplies, including fuel”, the statement said.

The government media office in Gaza has also announced on Thursday Israeli military aircraft bombed eight hospitals in the Gaza Strip in the past three days.

About three-quarters of the 10,500 people killed in Gaza since the conflict began are children, women and the elderly, according to a report Wednesday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah.

A total of 106 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies arrived at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Wednesday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced, amid growing calls from international aid agencies for a ceasefire to allow more aid into the besieged enclave.

The delivery from the Egyptian Red Crescent did not include desperately needed fuel, which Israel has banned from entering Gaza, claiming Hamas would commandeer supplies for military purposes.

It brings the total number of aid trucks into Gaza since October 7 to 756, according to the Palestine Red Crescent — a trickle compared to the roughly 455 trucks the UN says entered daily before the war.