Israel keeps pounding Gaza, hits children's hospital the al-Dorra

12 Jan 2009

Israeli forces have attacked a children's hospital in Gaza in a fourth day of attacks after a UN Security Council call for ceasefire.

The al-Dorra children's hospital was targeted by Israeli forces, the Palestinian al-Aqsa TV station reported early on Monday.

The attack came as clouds of smoke filled Gaza's skyline in day 17 of Israel's deadly military onslaught in the region.

On Sunday, Israeli aircraft also bombed and destroyed a clinic in the Gaza Strip after firing warning shots close to the building.

Although evacuation of the clinic prevented any human casualties, all the clinic's equipment and supplies were destroyed. This is while the region faces serious medical shortages, which make treatment of the wounded extremely difficult.

Since the beginning of its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, Israel has targeted several registered medical facilities, which were given assurances that they would not come under attack.

It seems that even Gaza's main hospital, al-Shifa, is not save from the threat of deadly raids as the Israeli website Ha'aretz quotes intelligence sources as claiming that Hamas fighters are hiding in its basement.

This is while two Norwegian doctors who have been working in the al-Shifa hospital say that the medical center is nearing collapse, as patients die because of a lack of specialist doctors and basic medical equipment.

The Israeli army's indiscriminate killing of civilians, denial of humanitarian aid, and attacks on aid workers forced the UN Security Council to pass a non-binding resolution for immediate and durable ceasefire in the region on Thursday. The US, Israel's main ally, abstained from the vote.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which earlier limited its activities to Gaza City alone, has now stopped escorting ambulances to hospital as medics and aid convoys are still targeted by Israeli forces, Press TV's Yousef Al-Helou reports from Gaza.

This is while rights groups and medics confirm that the Israeli military's is using banned weapons, such as phosphorus bombs, in its attacks on Gaza.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said that Israel had fired artillery shells with the incendiary agent white phosphorus into Gaza.

Phosphorus bombs are extremely deadly weapons which cause fires on the ground and serious burns on the skin and in the lungs when inhaled. They can also cause severe heart, liver and kidney injures.

“My family was inside our house when a shell hit it spraying sparks like lava. Two more shells hit the house separately. The sparks set my sons on fire. But I couldn't put out the blaze because my face was on fire. I couldn't see. They were screaming mom, we're dying. One of my sons was burned to death, burned to a crisp,” a Gazan woman told our Press TV reporter.

MJ/DT