William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC mission in Gaza, said both hospitals "are rapidly running out of fuel and medical supplies".
"There are hospital workers who have been personally impacted by the conflict and lots of them have been on shift around the clock. They have not been able to go home for several days, working really under the toughest and most unimaginable of conditions in scenes of utter chaos, frankly speaking," Schomburg said.
"We saw individuals with severe burn wounds, children who had lost their lives, a large number of women, older people, people with disabilities." As well as being packed with patients with severe injuries from bombings, the hospitals are functioning as shelters for thousands of people displaced from their homes, who "feel like they have nowhere else to go" Schomburg said.
The UN says about 1.4 million of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now internally displaced.
Nearly half of them have taken refuge in UN shelters, while the other half have found some floor space in other people's homes, hospitals or public facilities. But that is no guarantee of safety.
"During our visit to al-Quds hospital, there were heavy airstrikes all around us and the entire hospital shook," Schomburg said.
This story is from the October 26, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the October 26, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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