The Palestinian Red Crescent said it lost contact with its teams in the area due to Israel’s ground invasion following intense attacks on southern Gaza.

Israeli forces shot Al-Shifa Hospital’s head of the pathology department, Dr Hossam Hamada, in western Gaza on Monday and left him to bleed on the ground, triggering calls on international agencies to save him.

The last update on Dr Hamada’s condition came on Monday midnight by Palestinian news outlets and activists, without any updates on whether medics on the ground were able to save him.

Dr Hamada is among the latest health staff that have been targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza under the ongoing genocide, which killed at least 25,295 Palestinians and wounded 63,000 others.

Israel has targeted at least 208 health facilities and 657 health professionals, according to Euro-Med. An unconfirmed number of medics have been kidnapped by occupation forces since last year, including Al-Shifa Hospital’s director Muhammad Abu Salmiya.

Israeli forces kidnapped Abu Salmiya on November 23 weeks after raiding the Al-Shifa Hospital and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Hospitals and doctors have been among Israel’s main targets since the beginning of the war, which has left only 15 partially functioning hospitals out of a total of 36. Occupation forces have accused Hamas of allegedly using hospitals as command centres to justify their attacks.

Numerous rights agencies debunked Israel’s allegations, including Amnesty International.

Last week, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said the war in Gaza “has drastically diminished the options for people to find medical care.” The organisation itself was forced to evacuate hospitals and leave patients behind, MSF said in a statement on January 12.

“We’re gradually being cornered in a very restrictive perimeter in southern Gaza, in Rafah, with dwindling options to offer critical medical assistance, while the needs are desperately growing,” Thomas Lauvin, MSF project coordinator in Gaza, said.

“Today we are limited to mainly working in the south because we cannot work elsewhere,” Lauvin added. 

Israel had ordered approximately 1.1 million people to evacuate northern Gaza to the south on 12 October 2023. Occupation forces raided the Al-Shifa Medical complex, the largest in Gaza, the following month, displacing and wounding Palestinians who were using it as a shelter during the first days of Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Despite the evacuation orders, Israel has expanded its genocidal war in southern Gaza. On Monday, Israeli tanks surrounded the Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younes, southern Gaza.

The Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) said it lost contact with its teams in the area due to Israel’s ground invasion following intense attacks on southern Gaza.

Israeli forces have also targeted the Nasser Medical Complex in the same area, Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Ramallah, told Al Jazeera.

“This is not the first time. [In the last few weeks], there were several attacks and bombings in the area of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis. We got direct attacks at the Palestine Red Crescent headquarters with artillery shelling, which literally destroyed three floors and killed at least seven people inside the building,” she said.