HOSPITAL conditions in northern Gaza are deteriorating under sustained Israeli assaults, but an Anglican hospital in Gaza City is rallying under a sign of hope: a new entrance sign, to replace one destroyed in attacks on the city.

On Friday, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, after air strikes in the vicinity, news agencies report.

The city in which the hospital is located, Beit Lahiya, has been a focus of Israeli military operations over the past two months; scores have been killed in air strikes that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say are necessary to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, said that troops entered the hospital and told staff, patients, and people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza to leave, Reuters reported.

Gazan officials said that 29 people were killed in air strikes near the hospital. AFP reported that four members of hospital staff were among the fatalities. In October, the director’s son was killed in a drone attack on the hospital.

An IDF statement denied that any military operations had taken place in the hospital.

Sixty patients at the Indonesian Hospital elsewhere in Beit Lahiya are reportedly at risk of dying because of inadequate food and water. On Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported, the Gazan Health Ministry described the situation as “extremely dangerous”.

The most recent strikes occurred on Wednesday: at least 22 people were reported killed after a residential building in Beit Lahiya was hit. Gazan officials said that the dead included women and children. An IDF spokesperson told Reuters that the reported fatality numbers were “inaccurate”.

In Gaza City, the Anglican Al-Ahli Hospital has reopened its chemotherapy unit, despite continuing to operate with a shortage of staff and supplies.

The hospital, administered by the diocese of Jerusalem, has also got a new sign. The Archbishop’s Chaplain, Canon Don Binder, said that although the hospital was “overrun with the influx of hundreds of sorely wounded patients from the besieged north”, the new entrance arch was “a singular sign of renewed dignity and hope”.

The hospital’s director, Dr Suhaila Tarazi, told the Melbourne Anglican: “We don’t discriminate. We are not part of this conflict. . . Our humanitarian mission is to show the love of Jesus.”

She described the conditions in which doctors were working: “On certain days, we have no anaesthesia; so the doctors have to do surgeries and amputate parts of the legs of children and injured without it. We suffer from a shortage of sterilisation solutions; so we sometimes use vinegar to clean some equipment.”

The Church of Ireland Bishops’ Appeal is supporting the diocese and Tearfund partners operating in Palestine.

It was reported on Tuesday that dozens of staff members of the US aid organisation World Central Kitchen (WCK) had been fired, after Israeli officials complained that at least 62 employees of the charity had links to militant groups.

Reuters reported that WCK had told staff that the organisation “do not know the basis” on which the individuals were flagged.