ROME – Italy has announced sending a hospital ship with 170 staff on board close the coast of Gaza to provide treatment to victims of Israeli bombardment.
Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto made the announcement will talking to reporters. He said that two naval vessels that were already sent to the war-hit region would likely remain there.
“We will evaluate whether to keep them in the area, but I prefer to keep three ships there and not to have any regrets,” Crosetto was quoted as having said by international media.
He said the hospital ship would leave today (Wednesday), adding that a plan to send a field hospital to Gaza is also on the cards.
Palestinian officials said 10,569 people have now been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 when Hamas launched a cross-border attack in southern Israel, killing 1,400 people.
The war is being dubbed as the bloodiest in the generations-long Israel-Palestinian conflict as 40 percent of those killed in Gaza are children.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in northern Gaza face unprecedented hardship after being isolated by Israeli military operations, while a medical convoy sent by the UN and partners was fired on in Gaza City, the United Nations’ humanitarians said on Wednesday.
No bakeries are functioning in the north because of a lack of fuel, water and flour and no food or bottled water has been distributed there in a week, according to UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in a statement said hospitals in the north now conduct surgery without anaesthesia due to lack of medical supplies.
Adding to the dire healthcare picture, OCHA reported that a convoy of five trucks from WHO and the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), escorted by two vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) came under fire on its way to deliver lifesaving medical supplies to the Shifa and Al Quds hospitals in Gaza city on Tuesday.
As many as a third of all buildings in northern Gaza have reportedly been destroyed or damaged, and a UN-appointed independent rights expert warned on Wednesday that systematic or widespread bombardment of housing, civilian objects and infrastructure are strictly prohibited by international humanitarian law, criminal law and human rights law.
On the other hand, Israeli forces have started killing Palestinians on the West Bank. So far, 147 Palestinians have been killed, including 44 children, at the hands of Israeli forces, in the region. An additional eight Palestinians, including one child, have been killed by Israeli settlers.