Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants outside Gaza’s largest hospital has prompted thousands of people to flee from the sprawling medical facility, but hundreds of patients and others displaced by the war remained inside, health officials said Monday. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since the war began. Gaza City, the largest urban area in the territory, is the focus of Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas following the militant group’s deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that set off the war. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing. More than 1,200 people in Israel died, most of them in the Hamas attack, and about 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by Palestinian militants.
Here’s what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
Quick Read
- Israeli Forces at Gaza City’s Main Hospital:
- Hospital Siege: Israeli forces reached Al Shifa hospital, causing fuel shortages and patient deaths.
- Casualties: 32 patients died, including three newborns, due to lack of power.
- Desperate Need for Evacuation: Over 650 patients inside, with Hamas denying Israel’s accusation of using patients as shields.
- Wider Impact of Conflict:
- Concerns of War Expansion: Clashes on Israel’s northern border and U.S. airstrikes in Syria.
- Death Toll: Over 11,000 Gazans killed, with a focus on Israel’s campaign in Gaza City.
- International Polarization: Global debate over the justification of Israel’s response to Hamas attacks.
- Hospital Conditions and Response:
- Israeli Actions: Claims of blocking fuel delivery and firing into hospitals.
- UN Agencies’ Response: Minute’s silence for 101 staff members killed; UNRWA shelters 800,000 people.
- Ceasefire Rejection: Israel rejects ceasefire demands, backed by the U.S.
- Civilian Suffering:
- Large-scale Displacement: Many residents remain in Gaza despite evacuation orders.
- Health Crisis: Fuel shortage impacting medical and emergency services.
- Hezbollah’s Involvement:
- Hezbollah and Israel Exchange Fire: Lebanon-based Hezbollah trading missile attacks with Israel.
The Associated Press has the story:
Israeli tanks at gates of main Gaza hospital where patients trapped in ‘circle of death’
Israeli forces reached the gates of Gaza City’s main hospital on Monday, the primary target in their battle to seize control of the northern half of the Gaza Strip, where medics said patients including newborn babies were dying for lack of fuel.
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra, who was inside Al Shifa hospital, said 32 patients had died in the past three days, including three newborn babies, as a result of the siege of the hospital and lack of power.
At least 650 patients were still inside, desperate to be evacuated to another medical facility by the Red Cross or some other neutral agency. Israel says the hospital sits atop tunnels housing a headquarters for Hamas fighters using patients as shields, which Hamas denies.
“The tanks are in front of the hospital. We are under full blockade. It’s a totally civilian area. Only hospital facility, hospital patients, doctors and other civilians staying in the hospital. Someone should stop this,” a surgeon at the hospital, Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati, said by telephone.
“They bombed the (water) tanks, they bombed the water wells, they bombed the oxygen pump as well. They bombed everything in the hospital. So we are hardly surviving. We tell everyone, the hospital is no more a safe place for treating patients. We are harming patients by keeping them here.”
There was also fresh concern that the war could spread beyond Gaza, with an upsurge of clashes on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and the United States launching air strikes on Iran-linked militia targets in neighboring Syria.
Israel launched its campaign last month to annihilate Hamas, the militant group which runs the Gaza Strip, after Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel killing civilians. Around 1,200 people died and 240 were dragged to Gaza as hostages according to Israel’s tally, in the deadliest day in its 75-year history.
Since then thousands of Gazans have been killed and two thirds of the population made homeless by a relentless Israeli military campaign. Israel has ordered the total evacuation of the northern half of Gaza. Gaza medical authorities say more than 11,000 people have been confirmed killed, around 40% of them children.
Since Israeli ground forces entered Gaza in late October and quickly surrounded Gaza City, fighting has been concentrated in a tightening circle around Al Shifa, the enclave’s biggest hospital.
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Qidra said an Israel tank was now stationed at the hospital gate. Israeli snipers and drones were firing into the hospital, making it impossible for medics and patients to move around.
“We are besieged and are inside a circle of death,” he said.
Israel has told civilians to leave and medics to send patients elsewhere. It says it has attempted to evacuate babies from the neo-natal ward and left 300 litres of fuel to power emergency generators at the hospital entrance, but the offers were blocked by Hamas.
Qidra said the 300 litres would power the hospital for just half an hour, and Shifa needed 8,000-10,000 litres of fuel per day delivered by the Red Cross or an international agency. An Israeli official who requested anonymity said 300 litres could last several hours because only the emergency room was running.
Dr El Mokhallalati, the surgeon, said premature babies that would normally be in individual incubators were being lined up eight to a bed, kept warm with whatever power was left.
After three died there were 36 alive in the neo-natal unit, he said. “We are expecting to lose more of them day by day.”
GUNBATTLE AT SECOND HOSPITAL
Fighting also took place at a second major hospital in northern Gaza, al-Quds, which has also stopped functioning. The Palestinian Red Crescent said the hospital was surrounded by heavy gunfire, and a convoy sent to evacuate patients and staff had been unable to reach it.
Israel said it had killed “approximately 21 terrorists” at al-Quds in return fire after fighters shot from the hospital entrance. It released footage purporting to show a group of men at the hospital gate, one of whom appeared to be carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
U.N. agencies observed a minute’s silence on Monday for 101 staff members killed so far in Gaza, the largest toll of humanitarian workers since the U.N. was founded in the ashes of World War Two.
U.N. agency UNRWA is now housing around 800,000 people in Gaza, or half of those made homeless by the fighting. It said on Monday its emergency fuel depot for the enclave had finally run dry and it would soon be unable to run ambulances, resupply hospitals, provide drinking water or pump sewage.
The more than month-long conflict has polarised the world, with many countries saying that even the shocking brutality of the Hamas attacks did not justify an Israeli response that has killed so many civilians.
Israel says it must destroy Hamas, and the blame for harm to civilians falls on fighters hiding among them. It has rejected demands for a ceasefire, which it says would only prolong the suffering by letting Hamas regroup. Washington backs that position though it says it is pressing its ally to protect civilians.
Hundreds of thousands of residents are believed to remain in the northern part of Gaza, despite Israel’s order to leave. Israel has also regularly bombed the south.
Health officials said at least 15 people were killed in three strikes in and near the main southern Gaza city, Khan Younis. At Nasser Hospital, people in private cars brought in casualties.
“There are dead bodies under the rubble, we need ambulances,” one of the men cried.
The conflict has raised fears of a broader conflagration. Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, has traded missile attacks with Israel.
The United States carried out two air strikes in Syria against Iran-aligned groups on Sunday, a U.S. defense official said. Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have launched at least 40 drone and rocket attacks on U.S. forces.
Currently:
— Thousands flee Gaza’s main hospital but hundreds, including babies, still trapped by fighting
— Hospitals have special protection under the rules of war. Why are they in the crosshairs in Gaza?
— Biden’s certitude on Israel gives way to the complexities and casualties of a brutal war
— Attacks by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group wound 7 Israeli troops, 10 others along border with Israel
— US conducts airstrikes against Iran-backed groups in Syria, retaliating for attacks on US troops
— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
