Field hospital in Gaza for Palestinians by UAE
As the IDF advances on Hamas strongholds beneath Shifa Hospital, five aircraft depart Abu Dhabi with supplies for an Emirati project.
The state-run news agency of the United Arab Emirates said on Monday that the government is establishing a field hospital in the Gaza Strip.
As part of the hospital’s Gallant Knight 3 humanitarian effort, the facility was ordered to be built by Emirati ruler Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, the WAM news site reports.
From Abu Dhabi, five cargo aircraft took out for Al-Arish, Egypt, where the equipment will be unloaded prior to being transported by road into the Gaza Strip.
With 150 beds, the hospital will feature adult and pediatric gynecology, orthopedics, pediatrics, and general surgery departments. There will also be clinics for internal medicine, family medicine, dentistry, and psychiatry.
“The initiative reflects the UAE’s historic stance of support and solidarity with the Palestinian people, particularly in light of the challenging circumstances currently being faced,” said the state-run agency.
According to information obtained by The Times of Israel, the hospital is being established in cooperation with Israel, although the specifics are still being worked out.
Israel is keen to see field hospitals established both inside and beyond the Gaza Strip. It has said that Hamas uses hospitals as its headquarters, and the more patients transferred to make way for temporary facilities, the easier it will be for it to attack Hamas objectives inside the hospitals.
Nine miles (15 km) from the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza, Egypt is constructing a field hospital. In order to assist Gaza’s hospitals, France dispatched a helicopter carrier to the eastern Mediterranean, and it is currently negotiating with Egypt to establish a field hospital there.
As part of the US-backed Abraham Accords, the UAE restored relations with Israel in 2020; nevertheless, in contrast to other regional actors, it denounced the Hamas atrocities and the kidnapping of Israeli captives. The UAE was quick to declare that it will treat 1,000 injured Gazan youngsters and their families as well as provide $20 million in humanitarian relief for the Palestinians.
In the second week of the conflict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also had a conversation with MBZ.
After launching heavy strikes against the terror group the previous night, Israeli forces continued to target Hamas’s military capabilities and network of underground tunnels on Monday. They were also reportedly getting closer to the main Shifa Hospital in the enclave, which Jerusalem claims is situated above the organization’s command center.
According to the general manager of hospitals in the Strip in Gaza, an Israeli strike caused damage to a building at Shifa Hospital, the biggest enclave, which resulted in casualties and fatalities.
Speaking on Al Jazeera, Mohamed Zaqout asserted that those who were seeking refuge on the top floor were murdered in the hit. He said that the attack shattered the solar panels on the roof. Later, Israel refuted that assertion.
There were reports of intense fighting on Monday night near the hospital, including flares being used by the IDF.
The IDF published fresh intelligence on Sunday that demonstrated Hamas’s use of hospitals as operational hubs. The military has already charged Hamas of storing fuel for terror attacks and operating out of Shifa as its primary base of operations.
After about 3,000 terrorists broke across the Gaza border on October 7, killing almost 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel, Israel declared war on Hamas. In addition, they brought at least 240 hostages—at least 30 of them were infants and children—to the Strip.
The Hamas-run health officials in Gaza announced on Monday that the conflict has claimed the lives of over 10,000 people, many of them women and children. Although the numbers provided by the terror group are unverified, it is thought that they comprise the deaths of its own terrorists and gunmen who were shot and killed in Gaza and Israel, as well as the victims of the hundreds of rockets fired by terror groups that were unable to penetrate the Strip.
Israel has promised to eradicate Hamas as a terror organization and claims that its operation in Gaza is intended to destroy the organization’s infrastructure. It claims to be hitting all places where Hamas is active while attempting to reduce the number of civilian casualties—thousands, according to US estimates on Monday.
