Israel kills five medical staff as another baby freezes to death in Gaza 

Israel’s genocide has killed five staff members at one of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, the facility’s director says, as yet another baby freezes to death in the besieged and bombed Palestinian enclave.

Hussam Abu Safia, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on Thursday said the “martyrs included a doctor.”

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from central Gaza, said a laboratory technician and two maintenance workers were among those killed in the attack.

“We know that the hospital is one of the only medical facilities still operating, and it is working with the bare minimum human resources and a lack of medical supplies,” she said.

“Israeli forces have been attacking the surroundings of Kamal Adwan Hospital, sending quadcopters inside the hospital and shooting Palestinians.”

The hospital has been rendered nonoperational after weeks of near-daily attacks. Israeli forces previously killed the director of the hospital’s ICU, Dr Ahmed al-Kahlout, and wounded dozens of medical staff in attacks on and near the facility.

Khoudary said Palestinian rescue workers have been unable to reach the bodies of those killed at the hospital. “People are unable to bury those Palestinians who are being killed every single day by the Israeli forces in northern Gaza,” she added.

Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in northern Gaza on October 5, saying it aimed to prevent the Palestinian group Hamas from regrouping.

Since then, no sufficient humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, has been allowed into the area, leaving the remaining population on the verge of famine.

The World Health Organization has described conditions at Kamal Adwan Hospital as “appalling” and said it was operating at a “minimum” level.

Meanwhile, a fourth infant has died due to extreme cold within 72 hours in Gaza, the Wafa news agency reported on Thursday.

Medical sources said the baby died due to a drop in temperature as the humanitarian conditions across the enclave are dire.

“The tents do not protect from the cold, and it gets very cold at night with no way to keep warm,” said Dr Ahmed al-Farra, the chief paediatric doctor at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis area.

In more than a year of Israeli attacks and lack of aid deliveries, many families in Gaza have been left without adequate shelter and resources to cope with the changing weather.

Local health officials told Wafa a lack of food among mothers was contributing to a rise in health issues among children, further straining medical facilities and emergency services.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. The offensive has also caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, often multiple times.

Hundreds of thousands of people are packed into tent camps along the coast as the cold, wet winter sets in. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and said there are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood.