Aid group stops work at clinic in Rafah as Israeli army approaches
Aid organization Doctors Without Borders has suspended work at the so-called Indonesian Hospital in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah as Israel's offensive gathers pace.
The 22 remaining patients have been transferred to other facilities as their safety could no longer be guaranteed, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
Doctors Without Borders outlined the struggles it has faced since the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas began in October.
"We have had to leave 12 different health structures and have endured 26 violent incidents, which include airstrikes damaging hospitals, tanks being fired at agreed ... shelters, ground offensives into medical centres and convoys fired upon," emergency coordinator Michel-Olivier Lacharité said in a statement.
According to the UN emergency relief organization OCHA, 24 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are no longer in operation.
Doctors Without Borders says it is trying to set up field hospitals but these cannot replace a functioning healthcare system and cannot cope with an influx of wounded civilians.
On October 7 last year, around 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage in an unprecedented massacre by Hamas and other Islamist groups in Israel.
The terrorist attack triggered the Gaza war and around 35,000 people have died since as Israel attacked the north and centre of the coastal enclave.
Now the Jewish state is intent on raiding the last remaining large settlement of Rafah, which is on the Egyptian border and has seen waves of refugees from other areas of Gaza from earlier in the war.
Israel believes Hamas members are still hiding in the middle of residential areas and in numerous tunnels.
