The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that work has stopped at its ambulance center in the northern Gaza governorate, because there is no fuel for vehicles and hospitals are out of service.
In a statement issued Thursday, the PRCS said that minor and moderate injuries were being handled at a medical point set up by the PRCS' ambulance team in the area.
It said that the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza faced “very great challenges” in treating the wounded, again accusing the Israel military of targeting the hospital.
Work in all hospitals in Gaza City, especially Al-Quds and Al-Shifa hospitals, had stopped because the Israeli military prevented crews from providing services, and many workers had been forced to flee to the south, “creating hundreds of victims due to the impossibility of providing emergency and medical service to the injured.”
The Israel Defense Forces has persistently denied targeting hospitals as such, but accuses Hamas of operating from within and under hospitals. Israel says it will strike Hamas wherever it sees the militant group.
On Wednesday, the PRCS said it was stopping its ambulance operations in northern Gaza.
In southern Gaza, the PRCS said the fuel crisis continued at the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis governorate, “where the consumption of services provided has been reduced to minimum.”
Recovery efforts: The PRCS also said that bodies continue to be retrieved from the streets and from under rubble but operations to recover the dead were difficult because of the lack of fuel.
It estimated the number of those unaccounted for — either under the rubble or lying in the streets — at 7,500, of which more than 4,700 are children and women.
The PRCS said that 286 medical staff had been killed in Gaza since October 7 and 56 ambulances destroyed.
CNN is unable to verify the society’s figures, but ambulances have been unable to operate in parts of northern Gaza because of air strikes and impassable roads. Anecdotal evidence suggests many bodies have not been recovered from destroyed buildings.