التصنيف: أخبار

جنيف – وكالات:

عبَّر مسؤولون في منظمة الصحة العالمية، عن قلقهم إزاء احتمال انهيار المستشفيات في جنوب ووسط قطاع غزة، مع فرار كثير من أفراد الأطقم الطبية والمرضى للنجاة بأرواحهم، ولا يعمل إلا ثلث مستشفيات غزة تقريباً، وبعضها يعمل جزئياً فقط، نتيجة القصف الإسرائيلي المستمر منذ أشهر على القطاع، في إطار حملة عسكرية رداً على هجوم «طوفان الأقصى» الذي قامت به «حماس» على جنوب إسرائيل، في السابع من أكتوبر (تشرين الأول). والقتال محتدم في وسط وجنوب غزة، مما يزيد الضغوط على المستشفيات المثقلة بالأعباء، والتي لا تزال مفتوحة.

وقال شون كيسي، منسق فرق الطوارئ الطبية لمنظمة الصحة العالمية في غزة، لمؤتمر صحافي في جنيف، عبر رابط فيديو: «ما نراه حول مستشفى (الأقصى) ومن تكثيف للأعمال العدائية على مسافة قريبة جداً من مستشفى غزة (الأوروبي) ومستشفى (ناصر) يثير قلقاً حقيقياً»، وفقاً لوكالة «رويترز» للأنباء. وأضاف: «لا يمكننا أن نخسر هذه المرافق الصحية. تجب حمايتها بكل تأكيد. إنها الخط الأخير من الرعاية الصحية الثانوية والأخيرة في غزة من الشمال إلى الجنوب، وهي تسقط مستشفى تلو الآخر».

وقال ريك بيبيركورن، ممثل منظمة الصحة العالمية في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة، في المؤتمر الصحافي نفسه: إن توصيل المساعدات الطبية إلى داخل غزة، أصبح صعباً على المنظمة. وأضاف: «نشهد مجالاً إنسانياً معقداً ومنكمشاً، بسبب امتداد الأعمال العدائية إلى الجنوب».

Hooded gunmen have burst onto a live TV set in Ecuador – a day after the country’s president declared a state of emergency following the escape of one of the country’s most-notorious drug gang bosses from prison.

Live television images broadcast on Tuesday showed hooded people – some waving guns – inside Ecuador’s TC Television station in Guayaquil.

They were seen telling staff to lie down on the floor and shouted that they had “bombs”, while shouting and noises similar to gunshots could be heard in the background.

Some of the group gestured at the camera and someone could be heard yelling “no police”, before the broadcast feed was eventually cut.

The national police said on social media its specialised units had been deployed to the television station, before publishing footage of armed officers surrounding the building.

Police later shared a post on X, formerly Twitter, in which said they had “captured” several suspects and evidence linked to the incident.

National police commander Cesar Zapata told the TV channel Teleamazonas that all of those involved had been arrested and officers had seized a number of guns and explosives

“This is an act that should be considered as a terrorist act,” Mr Zapata said.

The astonishing incident comes a day after Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency after one of the country’s most-notorious drug gang bosses escaped from prison.

At least seven police officers have also been kidnapped, and there have been a series of explosions reported across the South American country.

Mr Noboa, the son of one of Ecuador’s richest men, took office in November promising to stem a wave of drug-related violence on the streets and in prisons.

The drug lord, Adolfo Macias – also known as Fito – was first reported missing from his cell on Sunday.

The leader of the Los Choneros gang was serving a 34-year sentence in La Regional prison for drug trafficking and murder.

His reported escape occurred on the same day he was scheduled to be transferred to a maximum security facility in the city of Guayaquil.

Ecuador‘s prosecutors have filed charges against two prison guards as part of their investigation into the alleged escape.

Los Choneros is one of the gangs authorities consider responsible for a spike in violence that reached new heights last year with the assassination of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

The gang has links with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, according to authorities.

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Mr Villavicencio had claimed Los Choneros threatened him, but authorities have been unable to formally accuse Macias or his group of being behind the murder.

The state of emergency announced by Mr Noboa allows for the use of military patrols, on the streets and in prisons, and the setting of a national nighttime curfew.

It was updated on Tuesday, recognising an “internal armed conflict”, identifying several criminal gangs as terrorist groups, including Los Choneros, and ordering the armed forces to neutralise them.

A Gazan resident says the “suffering of the people” in the Palestinian territory is “huge” as the stark reality of their desperation for food and other supplies is laid bare in new footage captured by Sky News.

An elderly man says he has eaten food off the floor, while a young girl says she and her family moved as she “had nothing to eat”.

The United Nations estimates that nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million population have been displaced from their homes by the fighting between the ruling Hamas group and Israeli forces since the war was sparked by Hamas’s massacre on 7 October last year.

Also, one in four of the enclave’s residents face starvation, with only a trickle of food, water, medicine and other aid entering through the Israeli siege.

Some 576,000 people are at catastrophic or starvation levels, according to the UN.

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In a street in Rafah, southern Gaza, people have come together to help those most in need, serving small pots of rice.

Khokho Bila Ahmed al Gathi tells Sky News that he and others, including “Good Samaritans”, prepare two big pots of food.

But he says: “This is not enough for the whole area… The suffering of the people is huge.”

In the footage, he picks up a small pot containing rice and says: “This for 30 people!? No. May God take our revenge. Those who can help the people in need should do so.

“The suffering here is real, we used to hear about things like this before but now it is real. We are living it now.”

He also states “40% of the people get food, including those who travel far distances to get here [but] 60% of the people leave unhappy without getting any food”.

“This is because it is not enough for all. We can cook only two to three big pots of food.

“Even if we make it 10 pots it will still not be enough, this is because the area is very densely populated.”

The footage shows dozens of people queuing up to try to get their small pots filled.

An elderly man says he had been helped by an aid programme but “the help is not enough, the aid is not enough”.

He also says he has eaten food off the floor – “anything that is edible”.

“Look at my hands with the pot in my hand… the time I was waiting to get this food. I forced myself to the front with the pot and got the food. It was not enough. I told them to put more in. They said ‘no’.”

The desperate man says there was “a lack of everything” and “it’s not enough, I swear it is not enough”.

“Look at all the people, they all want it, all the people are queuing and it is not enough, they tell us to leave.”

He says he will eat whatever he can find, “even if it’s a piece of bread I will pick it up and eat it. I eat food off the floor, anything that is edible I will pick up and eat”.

“I don’t care what it is, I only care that I need to eat.”

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Also, an 11-year-old girl called Jodi Lubad says she and her family came to Rafah about a week ago after being displaced from northern Gaza.

She says: “We have come… to take food because we do not have any food nor do we have any wood to cook food with, we have nothing to eat.”

Meanwhile, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said the UN will carry out an “assessment mission” to determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes in the north of Gaza.

Since the war began, Israel’s assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, and more than 58,000 have been wounded, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

Israel has vowed to continue its offensive until it has destroyed Hamas throughout the territory, in response to the 7 October attacks when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people, mainly civilians, in southern Israel and kidnapped around 250 others.