The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Saturday that it had established a field hospital in central Gaza, together with international organizations, that would serve Palestinians while the war against Hamas is still taking place.
The new hospital comes as the IDF presses ahead with its attack on the last Hamas battalions in Rafah, which has provoked criticism from the U.S. and other countries over humanitarian concerns.
The IDF said in a statement:
Today (Saturday), the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced the establishment of a new field hospital run by the International Medical Corps in the Gaza Strip in coordination with the IDF and COGAT. The field hospital was established in the area of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip and began operating in recent days. This coordination is a further part of the IDF and COGAT’s humanitarian efforts to ensure aid, including medical aid, reaches the Gazan civilian population.
The establishment of the hospital was coordinated and enabled through the entry of medical workers and medical equipment, including medicines, beds, food, water, tents, first aid equipment, ventilators, and materials for the construction of the field hospital, via the Kerem Shalom Crossing following security checks. The field hospital will be operated by 150 international medical aid workers, and its dozens of beds can be used for emergency and routine medical treatment.
The hospital joins seven other field hospitals that have been established in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war. It is located in the area of Deir al-Balah, which serves to provide humanitarian aid to the Gazan residents temporarily evacuated from the eastern Rafah area. As part of the humanitarian measures to facilitate the temporary evacuation of civilians from the eastern Rafah area, some of the existing field hospitals were transferred to the expanded Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi in coordination with the international community, where there is an increased supply of tents, food, water, and medicine.
The IDF and COGAT will continue to operate in accordance with international law to provide humanitarian aid to the Gazan civilian population.
The IDF has found terrorists in many of Gaza’s existing hospitals, using the facilities — in violation of international law — to hide fighters, store weapons, smuggle hostages, operate intelligence facilities, and launch military attacks.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.