WHO calls for evacuation of al-Chifa hospital, which has become a “death zone” – L’Express

⇒ Biden calls for “reunifying” Gaza and the West Bank.

⇒ Macron spoke with the Emir of Qatar and the Egyptian president about the hostages in Gaza

⇒ White House says “working hard” to reach Israel-Hamas deal

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had carried out a mission on Saturday, November 18 to the al-Chifa hospital in Gaza, occupied by the Israeli army, and was working on an evacuation plan for the establishment that she described as a “death zone”. According to the organization, whose experts spent an hour inside the immense hospital complex, it still housed 25 caregivers and 291 patients on Saturday, including 32 babies in critical condition, 22 patients on dialysis and two in intensive care.

The WHO described the situation as “desperate” within the facility. “WHO and partners are urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of remaining patients, staff and their families,” the organization added. “The team saw a hospital that was no longer able to function: no water, no food, no electricity, no fuel, medical supplies exhausted,” wrote X ( ex-Twitter) WHO Secretary General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO announced that several missions will be organized in the coming days to urgently evacuate the remaining patients to the Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital in Gaza, even if the latter are “already operating beyond their capacities”. According to the Israeli army, which launched a raid on al-Chifa hospital on Wednesday morning, the latter houses a Hamas hideout installed in particular in a network of tunnels. What the Islamist movement denies.

In a column published in the American daily The Washington Post, Joe Biden called this Saturday for a future reunification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under a “revitalized Palestinian Authority”. “Gaza and the West Bank should be reunified under the same governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority”, once Hamas is driven from the Palestinian territory it has governed since 2007, following the ongoing Israeli military operation , writes the American president.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded in a press conference that “the Palestinian Authority in its current form was not capable of assuming responsibility for Gaza.” “We cannot have a civilian authority in Gaza that supports terrorism, encourages terrorism, finances terrorism and teaches terrorism,” he said.

In his column, Joe Biden also threatened to ban visas from “extremist” settlers who attack civilians in the West Bank. “Extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and those who commit this violence must be held to account,” he insists. “A two-state solution is the only way to ensure the long-term security of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. Today this prospect seems more distant than ever, but the current crisis makes it more necessary than ever,” said the 80-year-old Democrat.

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke on Saturday with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, and the Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, on the ongoing negotiations to obtain the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, announced the Elysée. French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu was in Qatar at the same time, which is mediating for the release of the hostages, we learned from his office. On tour in the region, he visited the small Gulf state for the second time in 48 hours.

The three heads of state took stock of the situation of the hostages and the actions taken to free them,” the French presidency told AFP, affirming that President Macron recalled that “the release of the hostages , including eight French, was an absolute priority for France” and that they must be “released without delay”.

Still according to the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron reiterated the “need for an immediate truce leading to a ceasefire”, while “civilian victims are more and more numerous in Gaza” and that “hospitals and schools” are bombed. The three heads of state also discussed ways to strengthen “their coordination to enable the delivery of aid to the civilian population of Gaza.”

The White House said this Saturday that it was “continuing to work hard” to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release hostages and mark a pause in the fighting. “We have not yet reached an agreement, but we continue to work hard” in this direction, said White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

Also this Saturday, the United States also stressed the need for an agreement on the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip to achieve a “significant” pause in the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas. The US president’s top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, described the situation in the Palestinian territory as “horrible” and “intolerable”. But “the influx of humanitarian aid, the influx of fuel (and) a pause in the fighting will take place when the hostages are released,” he added during the annual security forum organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in Bahrain.