The biggest hospital in Gaza is “totally surrounded”, its director has said as fighting raged around it and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press on with Israel’s advance in the territory with “full force”.
Heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas has trapped thousands of people in Gaza’s hospitals, and medics and aid workers have warned patients will die in the crippled facilities unless there is a pause in the battle.
However Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire late on Saturday. “The war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory,” he said in televised comments.
Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the biggest in the territory, is “totally surrounded and bombardments are going on nearby”, the hospital’s director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said in a statement late on Saturday.
“The medical team cannot work and the bodies, in their dozens, cannot be managed or buried,” he said. Two newborns had already died on Saturday after the hospital’s fuel ran out and dozens more were at risk, officials said.
The World Health Organisation expressed “grave concern” for the safety of everyone trapped in al-Shifa by the fighting and said it had lost communications with its contacts there.
“As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area,” the organisation said on X, formerly Twitter, late Saturday.
“There are reports that some people who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded and even killed.”
Israel believes that Hamas has its headquarters beneath the hospital, claims which the hospital and Hamas have denied.
Ashraf Al-Qidra, who represents the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the hospital had suspended operations after fuel ran out on Saturday. He said Israeli shelling killed a patient in intensive care and that Israeli snipers on rooftops fired into the medical complex from time to time, limiting people’s ability to move.
Israel’s military said it was ready to evacuate babies from al-Shifa on Sunday. “The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital,” chief Israeli military spokesperson rear admiral Daniel Hagari said on Saturday. “We will provide the assistance needed.”
As the humanitarian situation worsened, Gaza’s border authority said the Rafah crossing into Egypt would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders after closing on Friday.
Hamas said it had completely or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 25 vehicles in the past 48 hours. An Israeli military spokesperson said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza.
Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began.
Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month.
Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since 7 October, around 40% of them children.
In Tel Aviv, thousands joined a rally to support families of the hostages late Saturday while Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there had been some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting.
According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting.
Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can tackle Hamas gunmen who it says have placed command centres under and around them.
Hamas denies using hospitals this way. Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave.
Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a senior plastic surgeon at al-Shifa, told Reuters on Saturday there had been continuous bombardment for more than 24 hours. He said most hospital staff and people sheltering there had left, but 500 patients remained.
“It’s totally a war zone. It’s a totally scary atmosphere here in the hospital,” he said.
The military wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it was “engaged in violent clashes in the vicinity of Al Shifa Medical Complex, Al Nasr neighbourhood, and Al Shati camp in Gaza.“
Al Nasr is home to several major hospitals.
In London, at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched on Saturday and police arrested over 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter-protesters ambushing the rally. Over 20,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels.
Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Muslim and Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel’s justification of self-defence. A communique issued at the summit urged the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing.”
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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2023-11-12 10:52:00Z
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