The doctor said it was an “impossible” as the facility, which has been bombarded and besieged by Israeli troops for days, houses around 7,000 people, including patients who are in critical condition.
“They do not have any ambulances to transfer the patients and premature babies to the south [of Gaza],” said Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Saturday.
“This is what he called ‘a crisis’, to ask them to evacuate in one hour.”
Those in al-Shifa include over 300 people patients, some or most of them in serious or critical condition, as well as thousands of displaced families.
It also includes “at least 35 premature babies who already for eight days now have been out of their incubators because of the lack of oxygen and the lack of electricity,” ElSayed said. There were 39 babies who had been left without incubators; four died late on Friday and five are severely sick now, our correspondent added.
“There is no transportation means in Gaza City and the northern parts because of a lack of fuel. So people are expected to evacuate on foot. And doctors are telling us it’s impossible to evacuate with this many people on foot.”
The Israeli army instructed people to evacuate through al-Rashid street, “not the usual street or route that people evacuating to the south are supposed to take, they usually take Salah al-Din street”, ElSayed said.
The hospital has been without food, water, electricity, oxygen for over a week, while Israeli troops and tanks raided the facility over the last couple of days.
Israel claimed Hamas has a command centre underneath the hospital, but found no evidence to support its claim. Hamas and hospital staff have always rejected the Israeli assertions.
Source: AlJazeera. 18 Nov. 2023