On Wednesday, after a long siege, the Gazan hospital of Al Shifa was stormed by Israeli troops, with an undetermined death toll and danger to its hundreds of patients.
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According to official data, this health center, without electricity, water or food for several days, houses some 9,000 people, including displaced persons, medical personnel and patients, among them more than 30 premature babies.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian government condemned the assault launched by the Israeli army against Al Shifa hospital and called for urgent international intervention to protect the population of its buildings.
According to official reports, Al Shifa hospital has become a symbol of the widespread suffering of Palestinian civilians during the Israeli invasion that has lasted almost six weeks.
On the other hand, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) affirmed that the situation in the Gaza Strip is devastating and insisted that there is no safe place for children.
UNICEF's executive director, Catherine Russell, touring the strip, denounced that what she has seen and heard is devastating, given the bombardments and the forced displacement of Palestinian families.
Russell recalled that more than 4,600 children were killed and nearly 9,000 injured in the Israeli attacks, while others are missing and believed to be under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the shelling.
According to reports, almost the entire population of Gaza has taken refuge in the southern two-thirds of the tiny enclave, where conditions have been deteriorating as the shelling continued.
Amid this scenario, a fuel truck was able to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian border, the first since the war began; so far only limited deliveries of humanitarian aid have reached Gaza, as Israel had refused to allow fuel to enter.
The United Nations warned that it would be forced to halt humanitarian operations, including the distribution of aid inside Gaza, as its fuel reserves were being totally depleted.