Israel's 'blockade' unfolds humanitarian crisis in Al-Shifa Hospital: Premature infants pay the price

These are the cries of premature babies, who have only been in this world for a few days or perhaps hours. Their "crime" is that they were born in the Gaza Strip, especially in Al-Shifa Hospital, besieged by the Israeli army.

Due to the power outage caused by Israel's prevention of fuel delivery to the hospital, oxygen and all means of caring for these infants in the neonatal ward came to a halt. 

The hospital staff and displaced parents transferred them to the last section of the hospital, which still has a minimal power supply.

These children survived, but seven others perished and were buried in a mass grave. 

The grave holds 172 individuals, patients and casualties alike, whose bodies lay for days in the hospital corridors and courtyard. 

This resulted from the failure of negotiations conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross with the Israeli army to permit their burial, in addition to the casualties who fell in the hospital vicinity, their bodies left on the roads to be scavenged by dogs.

The director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, summed up the situation in a few words.

He said the grave dug is small and cannot accommodate all the bodies. The number of victims is increasing, and the medical staff is performing surgeries without anesthesia and oxygen.

Despite Palestinian and international appeals to evacuate the hospital or at least transfer the patients, casualties, and children from it, Israeli tanks continue to block its entrances, claiming it is a strategic center for Hamas.