JAKARTA: Israeli forces have blocked food and water supply to the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza to force out the doctors who are refusing to leave their patients behind, the nongovernmental organization that funded it said on Sunday.

The hospital in Beit Lahiya, a four-story building located near the Jabalia refugee camp, was built from donations organized by the Jakarta-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee.

It has been sheltering more than a dozen patients, caregivers and health workers from Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, which was destroyed in December after months of relentless Israeli attacks.

The remaining doctors are defying orders to leave the Indonesia Hospital, MER-C said, adding that they last received food aid from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“They are still holding out. The condition is deteriorating, there’s a lack of water and food,” Marissa Noriti, a MER-C volunteer in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, told Arab News via WhatsApp.

“The Israeli occupation forces are blocking supply … The doctors are staying for the patients. They refuse to leave them behind.”

Indonesia Hospital is no longer in service after it was severely damaged by frequent Israeli attacks since October 2023. But the facility was still sheltering critically ill patients, despite not having electricity, water or supplies, according to UNOCHA.

The hospital operated under limited capacity last year, but Israeli bombardments forced the patients and medical staff to transfer to the Al-Shifa hospital in southern Gaza last December, with only a few doctors staying behind.

On Friday, as the hospital was surrounded by Israeli forces attacking the area, the doctors were ordered to leave the facility and the patients.

“We are monitoring the situation. Israel’s occupation forces are cutting off all supplies to force them out; this is their strategy to empty north Gaza, to empty all the hospitals in the north so the people have no place to go to seek help,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s board of trustees in Jakarta, told Arab News.

“We ask that the international community act by any means to save Palestine from the crimes of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).”

Israel has frequently targeted medical facilities in the Gaza Strip, saying that they are used by Palestinian armed groups. The attacks have pushed the enclave’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and wounded over 108,000 since Oct. 7, 2023. The real death toll is believed to be much higher, with estimates published by medical journal The Lancet indicating that, as of July, it could be more than 186,000.

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudan’s army chief has welcomed a Turkish offer to resolve the brutal 20-month conflict between his forces and their paramilitary rivals, the Sudanese foreign minister said.
In early December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a phone call with Sudan’s Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan that Ankara could help establish “peace and stability” in the war-torn African state.
At a meeting in Port Sudan on Saturday, Burhan asked Turkiye’s deputy foreign minister Burhanettin Duran to “deliver the Sudanese leadership’s welcoming of the initiative” to Erdogan, Sudanese foreign minister Ali Youssef said in a briefing after the meeting.
“Sudan needs brothers and friends like Turkiye,” Youssef said, adding that “the initiative can lead to... realizing peace in Sudan.”
Erdogan said in his December call with Burhan that Turkiye “could step in to resolve disputes” and prevent Sudan from “becoming an area of external interventions,” according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
Following his meeting with Burhan on Saturday, Turkiye’s Duran said that the peace process “entails concerted efforts,” and that his country was ready to play a “role in mobilizing other regional actors to help overcoming the difficulties in ending this conflict.”
In a statement last week, the UAE welcomed “diplomatic efforts” by Turkiye to “resolve the ongoing crisis in Sudan.”
“The UAE is fully prepared to cooperate and coordinate with the Turkish efforts and all diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Sudan and find a comprehensive solution to the crisis,” its foreign ministry said.
The war in Sudan, which has pitted Burhan against his former deputy and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more.
It has also pushed the country to the brink of famine, with analysts warning involvement from other countries will only prolong the suffering.