Since Sunday, Al Ahli Hospital has joined the long list of medical centers in Gaza whose storming or bombing by the Israeli army has become — through sheer repetition — a footnote to the war that began in October 2023. Since then, up to January, the UN-affiliated World Health Organization (WHO) has counted more than 654 attacks on healthcare facilities. Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza, virtually all are damaged or have been partially destroyed. Just under half are operating partially, converted into a sort of field hospital that is constantly receiving wounded, virtually without specialized services, and once again undergoing stockpiling due to the decision by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on March 2 to block all entry into Gaza of goods such as food, water, and medical supplies.

Israeli military authorities gave the residents of Al Ahli, in Gaza City, 20 minutes to evacuate. They then destroyed the emergency department, the laboratory, X-ray equipment, and the pharmacy, claiming — without providing evidence — that it housed “a command and control center used by Hamas.” The missiles caused no deaths, given the prior evacuation, but one child died after being deprived of access to the oxygen he needed. He was one of 40 critically ill patients who “should not have been moved,” as WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed on Monday.

Before the invasion, it was a small Christian hospital, but it ended up being the most important operation in northern Gaza, ahead of the three largest facilities in the area. The biggest and most famous is Al Shifa, because Israel also claimed at the beginning of the war that an immense Hamas command and control center was operating beneath it, which was never found. Troops returned in April 2024, and two weeks of siege ended with mass arrests and black shells instead of buildings. The same happened with the Indonesian hospital in November, which ended up closing two months later, shortly before Netanyahu reached a ceasefire agreement that he broke last last month, so as not to have to end the war. The third, Kamal Adwan, is still preparing to reopen some departments — despite the attack on Al Ahli — as it stressed in a statement on Monday. It was stormed in December by Israeli troops, who have imprisoned its director, Husam Abu Safiya, ever since.

Most of the 15 partially operational hospitals are in the center and south of the Strip. One of them is Al Nasser, in the city of Khan Younis, which has recently been squeezed between two military corridors: Netzarim — which disconnects it from northern Gaza and was reoccupied by Israel after the truce ended — and the newly created Morag, which separates it from the city of Rafah, half of which the Israeli army already occupies and has included in the area it permanently controls.

Spanish anesthesiologist Raúl Incertis, a volunteer with the small Canadian medical NGO Glia, works at the Al Nasser hospital. He uses a maritime simile to illustrate the situation he witnesses on a daily basis since arriving last Wednesday: “It’s like bailing out water from a boat full of holes.” Incertis recounts how one day of bombing triggered a mass casualty alarm twice. Between 35 and 40 patients arrived at once. “It’s not the first time I’ve treated bombed casualties, but it often happens here every day. The ICU is full and it’s like a house of horrors,” he says via video conference from the hospital.

Incertis still has the equipment for anesthesia (some children have been operated on without it in Gaza during the war), but is concerned about the shortage of supplies after a month and a half of the Israeli blockade of medical supplies. “At the rate we’re operating, I estimate that within a month we’ll notice shortages,” he explains. The center already implements cost-saving protocols: gloves are only replaced when they become soiled, intubation devices are cleaned, and when half of a drug is injected into a patient, the other half is used on another person who needs it, instead of throwing it away as is usually done.

The Hamas-led government’s Health Ministry in Gaza estimates that 37% of medicines and 59% of medical supplies are out of stock. Its data shows zero stock of 60% of what are considered essential items according to international standards. These include 99% of those used for cardiac catheters and open-heart surgeries; 87% for orthopedics; 45% for kidney and hemodialysis; and 42% for emergencies, surgery, and intensive care.

Key hospital departments also rely on power generators. Israel has cut off almost all electricity to Gaza since the early days of the war. A month ago, it disconnected the only line it had reconnected (the one supplying the water desalination plant) as part of its strategy to force Hamas to accept its terms by applying collective punishment to the entire population.

“Gaza’s health sector is being systematically dismantled”

The WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza, Rik Peeperkorn, who spends several weeks in Gaza every two months to monitor the situation on the ground, addressed the United Nations Security Council last January via videoconference. He stated that functioning hospitals had a capacity “far below what is needed to deal with the overwhelming crisis situation:” 822 beds. “Gaza’s health sector is being systematically dismantled and pushed to its limits,” with hospitals “time and again turned into battlefields.” Most now provide only basic care due to a combination of “damage, attacks, and lack of resources,” he added.

Much of the medical care is thus shifted to health centers and so-called health points., which try to fill the gaps as best they can. More than half of the 145 of the former, and 360 of the latter, are no longer operating. It is, in a way, as if there were only emergencies, with doctors and nurses providing care without the ability to refer patients, because specialized care is practically nonexistent.

What would be serious in other contexts can be life-threatening in the Strip (where malnutrition is rampant and infectious diseases have skyrocketed). Polio reappeared in Gaza last August after a 25-year hiatus, necessitating an urgent vaccination campaign. Of the 130 babies born every day in Gaza (27% of them by Caesarean section), one-fifth are born prematurely, with complications, or underweight because their mothers were unable to obtain adequate nutrition during pregnancy.

Since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, Israeli bombings have killed or wounded 7% (mostly children and women) of Gaza’s more than two million inhabitants. The Gaza Ministry of Health on Monday put the death toll at nearly 51,000 and the number of wounded at more than 116,000. A quarter of the latter suffer life-changing injuries, according to the United Nations.

One alternative would be medical evacuation, but it requires dwindling permits from the Israeli military authorities. Baby Mustafa Abu Freij, for example, has just arrived in Italy. His family had been waiting six months for authorization to treat him for the gunshot wound he suffered when he was nine days old. And he is just one of 4,500 children (out of a total of 12,000 people) who require urgent medical evacuation, according to the WHO. Coordinated medical evacuations have fallen short of actual needs since the beginning of the war, but only number a few dozen per month since May 2024, following Israel’s capture of the Gaza border crossing with Egypt. At the current rate, Peeperkorn estimated, evacuating those in need would take five to 10 years.

More than 1,000 health workers have been killed by Israeli attacks during the invasion of Gaza. The manner in which 15 died last month (on the deadliest single day of the war for Palestinian health services) sparked outrage outside the Middle East. They were killed (some with signs of execution) in three separate attacks on their ambulances; soldiers buried their bodies and covered the vehicles. A video recorded by one of the health workers before his death also revealed that the Israeli army lied in its initial account.

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“An Israeli who shoots a resident of Turmus Ayya has an 80% chance of wounding or killing a dual citizen,” said Yaser Alkam, municipal spokesman for this town in the occupied West Bank of just over 2,000 inhabitants, referring to the high number of residents who hold foreign passports, mainly from the United States. And that was what happened on Sunday afternoon, when Israeli soldiers shot and killed Amir Rabee, a 14-year-old Palestinian-American, and wounded two other 15-year-olds. The attack took place just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to land in Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I want to send a message to President Trump, so that he at least puts an end to this situation and stops sending weapons that are killing his citizens,” says the boy’s father, Mohamed Rabee, 49. He answers questions from EL PAÍS at midday on Monday during the funeral, at the entrance to the Turmus Ayya mosque and a few meters from his son’s body, draped in the Palestinian flag. As on similar previous occasions, the Israeli authorities claim he was killed because he was a stone-throwing “terrorist.”

“Six gunshot wounds: two to the heart, two to the back, and two to the head,” the father emphasizes, showing both his passport and his son’s, issued on September 23. Amir was born in New Jersey on May 5, 2010, but his father points to what he considers abandonment by the U.S. authorities. “Even if he had done something, they shouldn’t have killed him like that,” Mohamed laments before entering the mosque and sitting down to listen to the sermon beside the body. In the front row, about 30 children of various ages sit on the carpet surrounding the stretcher where Amir lies. “They murdered him in cold blood,” Yaser Alkam states.

“Today is a day of sadness and mourning, but at the same time, a day of celebration because we have a new martyr,” says Mayor Lafi Shalaby, referring to another death for the Palestinian cause. “This town is proud that one of its children is a martyr,” he emphasizes outside the mosque among dozens of people in the funeral procession. Many of Turmus Ayya’s families are migrants who have come and gone constantly for generations, he explains. His is one of them. The mayor states that five of his siblings and other relatives live in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, where his father also died in 2002.

“Trump is allowing what’s happening. Look, as soon as he took office, he lifted the sanctions his country had imposed on settlers. I don’t think we Palestinians are even second-class citizens to him,” comments the municipal spokesperson, while insisting that they don’t have a coordination protocol with U.S. authorities in the area for emergencies like Sunday’s attack. Rafeh Jbara, 15, also born in New Jersey, belongs to another of those families living between the U.S. and Palestine. “With Trump, I think things will get worse,” he predicts, surrounded by young people, curious in the presence of reporters. “I’ve lived 23 years of my life in the U.S., almost always in California, and I don’t like what that country is doing at all,” says Rachid Aziz, 53, another resident with dual nationality.

General strike

Outside the mosque, young people run around, alternating between Arabic and English while waving Palestinian flags next to posters on the walls bearing a photo of the slain teenager, announcing that the town has a new “martyr,” as they call those who have fallen for the Palestinian cause. “Fatah is in mourning,” reads the condolences offered by the political movement led by the Palestinian Authority (PA). In Turmus Ayya, the comings and goings of people can only be seen around Amir Rabee’s funeral, as the West Bank was holding a general strike Monday and everything remained closed in protest against the conflict in Gaza. Amid the prevailing stillness, large villas dot the town, symbolizing and recalling the progress of those who leave for overseas — and not just for the U.S.

The Israeli army, on this occasion, has made no attempt to deny its soldiers were responsible for the teenager’s death. Military spokespersons issued a statement Sunday night: “During a counterterrorism activity in the area of Turmus Ayya, IDF soldiers identified three terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving.” It added: “The soldiers opened fire toward the terrorists who were endangering civilians, eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists.” They attached blurry, black-and-white video footage as evidence in which three moving shadows can be seen, in which it is impossible to identify anyone.

Amir’s father is conclusive when asked about the video. “No one can prove that my son is one of them,” he states. “However, they have clear videos of settlers and soldiers burning houses in Turmus Ayya and killing people,” he adds, referring to the prevailing impunity amid the frequent attacks carried out by the occupation troops and Jewish settlers in the area against Palestinians. A few days ago, another minor with dual nationality, this time Palestinian-Brazilian, died. In this case, he collapsed in the Israeli prison where he had been detained since September, and an autopsy report cites starvation as the first possible cause of death. Various Israeli and Palestinian humanitarian organizations report this reality daily in prisons and in the occupied territories.

The residents of Turmus Ayya do not link the attacks in their town exclusively to the current Gaza war, which erupted in October 2023 and has also triggered violence in the West Bank. They insist it is a structural issue and that settlers often arrive, not only armed, but also dressed in military uniform, denounces Yaser Alkam, the municipal spokesman. “We will stay and, if necessary, sacrifice our lives, but we will not leave our homes or our lands,” he emphasizes. Meanwhile, several hundred people advance from the mosque toward the cemetery amid cries of rage. Some of them carry on their shoulders the body of young Amir, the latest victim of the Israeli occupation in Turmus Ayya.

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El primer ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, fue el primer dirigente internacional que visitó la Casa Blanca después de que Donald Trump jurase el cargo de presidente el pasado 20 de enero. Y este lunes repitió como el primero con el que se reúne después de su órdago de aranceles salvajes que supone una declaración de guerra comercial al mundo. Ambos han comparecido ante los medios en el Despacho Oval. Netanyahu se comprometió a eliminar el déficit comercial con Estados Unidos, mientras que Trump anunció la existencia de conversaciones directas con Irán sobre su programa nuclear, que llevarán el sábado a una “reunión muy importante” a “casi el máximo nivel”. Teherán confirmó que se celebrarían conversaciones, pero insistió en que serían discusiones indirectas a través de un mediador en el sultanato de Omán.

Trump ya había anunciado hace un mes en una entrevista con la cadena Fox su intención de emprender negociaciones directas con Irán. Sin embargo, Teherán venía rechazándolas y abogando por contactos indirectos. ”Creo que todos están de acuerdo en que sería preferible llegar a un acuerdo que hacer lo obvio”, ha declarado en aparente referencia a un ataque militar a sus instalaciones. “Y lo obvio no es algo en lo que yo quiera involucrarme o, francamente, en lo que Israel quiera involucrarse si pueden evitarlo. Así que vamos a ver si podemos evitarlo”, afirmó Trump. Durante su primer mandato, el presidente retiró a Estados Unidos del anterior acuerdo, negociado por Barack Obama, condenándolo a muerte.

El presidente señaló que el nuevo pacto en negociación sería “diferente y mucho más fuerte” que el anterior y lanzó una especie de amenaza a Teherán para el caso de no alcanzar un acuerdo: “Si las conversaciones con Irán no tienen éxito, creo que Irán estará en gran peligro”, dijo, y podrían tener “un día muy malo”. A su lado, escuchaba Netanyahu, deseoso de arrastrar a Estados Unidos a una confrontación con Irán para la que lo necesita militarmente.

Encuentro en Omán

Pese a la cancelación de la rueda de prensa conjunta, Trump respondió a numerosas preguntas de los periodistas. A diferencia de la anterior visita, en enero, la imposición arancelaria oscureció los asuntos de Oriente Próximo. Tanto que ninguna fue dirigida a Netanyahu, que hasta ahora se había mostrado más escéptico sobre las negociaciones sobre el programa nuclear de Irán. “Ambos estamos unidos en el objetivo de que no obtenga armas nucleares. Si se puede lograr por la vía diplomática, de forma plena, como se hizo en Libia, creo que sería positivo. Pero pase lo que pase, tenemos que asegurarnos de que Irán no tenga armas nucleares”, dijo el primer ministro israelí.

Trump no quiso desvelar detalles sobre la reunión del sábado, como dónde tendrá lugar. Solo que será a “alto nivel” y esa idea de que sería un encuentro directo. Sin embargo, el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores iraní, Abbas Araghchi, escribió en la red social X, que está prohibida en Teherán, que las conversaciones serían indirectas. “Irán y Estados Unidos se reunirán en Omán el sábado para mantener conversaciones indirectas de alto nivel. Es tanto una oportunidad como una prueba. La pelota está en el tejado de Estados Unidos”, tuiteó.

El presidente de Estados Unidos tampoco aportó grandes novedades sobre sus planes para la región. La visita de Netanyahu del pasado 4 de febrero tuvo un resultado imprevisible que dejó al mundo atónito. El presidente señaló que Estados Unidos se haría con el control de la Franja de Gaza y vino a decir que la demolería para reconstruirla de forma que sea la “Riviera de Oriente Próximo”, en la que viviría “gente del mundo”, tras desplazar a sus habitantes, unos 2,3 millones de personas, de forma permanente a países cercanos.

La propuesta cogió por sorpresa entonces incluso a su propio equipo. Trump no precisó cómo pensaba ejecutar una idea que contraviene el derecho internacional y todas las resoluciones de la ONU sobre la materia. Además, no tiene en cuenta ni la voluntad de los gazatíes ni la oposición cerrada de Jordania y Egipto al plan. Este lunes, Trump volvió a hablar de Gaza como una ubicación privilegiada para el desarrollo inmobiliario de la que Israel no debería haber retirado sus colonos y soldados en 2005 y que Estados Unidos debería “controlar y poseer”, pero cedió la palabra a Netanyahu para hablar de su plan de vaciarla de población. Lo presentó como una “visión a largo plazo”. “Tener una fuerza como Estados Unidos allí, controlando y poseyendo Gaza sería una cosa buena”, dijo.

El presidente también dio cuenta este lunes de un nuevo acuerdo de alto el fuego en negociación en Gaza. “Me gustaría que la guerra terminara, y creo que terminará en un futuro no muy lejano. Ahora mismo, tenemos un problema con los rehenes. Estamos intentando liberarlos. Es un proceso largo. No debería ser tan largo”.

La batalla arancelaria

El primer ministro israelí ―que aspiraba a obtener un levantamiento del arancel del 17% que le acaba de imponer― tuvo que escuchar que “quizás” permanezcan para siempre, que Estados Unidos ya “ayuda mucho” a Israel. Netanyahu se apresuró a prometer que eliminará a toda prisa el déficit comercial con su gran aliado.

Poco después de llegar a Washington el domingo por la tarde, Netanyahu ya se reunió con altos cargos del Gabinete de Trump, como el secretario de Comercio, Howard Lutnick, y el representante de Comercio de Estados Unidos, Jameson Greer, para discutir los aranceles. En un movimiento preventivo que no surtió los efectos esperados, Israel anunció la semana pasada que eliminaría todos los aranceles sobre los productos procedentes de Estados Unidos, principalmente alimentos y productos agrícolas.

La declaración del Gobierno israelí no mencionaba los inminentes aranceles de Trump, que se anunciaron al día siguiente, pero decía que la medida de Israel reforzaría los lazos con su mayor socio comercial, Estados Unidos. Aun así, Israel no se libró de la quema. Trump impuso a las importaciones procedentes del país un 17% de los mal llamados “aranceles recíprocos”.

Netanyahu voló directamente a Estados Unidos desde Hungría, donde el primer ministro húngaro, Viktor Orbán, venía de convertirse en el segundo líder mundial (después de Trump, en enero) y el primero de un país miembro del Tribunal Penal Internacional en recibir con honores a Netanyahu desde noviembre, cuando el órgano judicial ordenó su arresto por presuntos crímenes de guerra y contra la humanidad en Gaza. Hungría no solo incumplió su obligación legal de detenerlo, sino que también aprovechó para anunciar su salida del tribunal, que juzga a personas acusadas de genocidio, crímenes de guerra y delitos de lesa humanidad.

Esta orden de arresto es la que precisamente ha llevado a Netanyahu a modificar el trayecto de su vuelo a Washington, en función de qué países europeos probablemente lo arrestarían o no, en caso de aterrizaje de emergencia. Así, alargó 400 kilómetros la ruta para evitar Irlanda, Islandia y Países Bajos, optando por sobrevolar Croacia, Italia y Francia, que se han mostrado más ambiguos sobre si cumplirían con su obligación legal de hacerlo.