GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 13 Israeli forces reached the gates of the main hospital in Gaza City on Monday, the main target of their battle to take control of the northern half of the Gaza Strip, where doctors reported that patients, including newborns, were dying. due to lack of fuel.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra, who was at Al Shifa Hospital, said 32 patients had died in the past three days, including three newborns, as a result of the hospital headquarters and the power cut.
At least 650 patients were still inside, desperate to be evacuated to another medical facility by the Red Cross or other neutral agency. Israel says the hospital sits atop tunnels housing a headquarters of Hamas fighters, who are responsible for its plight by using patients as shields, which Hamas denies.
“The tanks are in front of the hospital. We are under total blockade. It is a completely civilian area. Only hospitals, hospitalized patients, doctors and other civilians staying in the hospital. Someone should stop this,” hospital surgeon Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati said by telephone.
“They bombed the (water) tanks, they bombed the water wells, they also bombed the oxygen pump. They bombed everything in the hospital. So we are struggling to survive. We say that everyone, the hospital is no longer a safe place to provide care. “We are harming patients by keeping them here.”
There were also fears that the war could spread beyond Gaza, with an increase in clashes on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and the United States launching airstrikes against militia targets linked to the Iran in neighboring Syria.
Israel launched its campaign last month to wipe out Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, after Hamas fighters went on a rampage across southern Israel, killing civilians. By Israel’s count, around 1,200 people died and 240 were taken hostage in Gaza in the deadliest day in its 75-year history.
Since then, thousands of Gazans have been killed and more than half the population left homeless due to a relentless Israeli military campaign. Israel has ordered the complete 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 an increasingly narrow circle around Al Shifa, the enclave’s largest hospital.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Qidra said an Israeli tank was now stationed at the entrance to the hospital. Israeli snipers and drones were firing on the hospital, preventing doctors and patients from moving around.
“We are under siege and are in a circle of death,” he said.
Israel asked civilians to leave and doctors to send patients elsewhere. He claims he tried to evacuate babies from the neonatal ward and left 300 liters of fuel to power emergency generators at the hospital entrance, but the offers were blocked by Hamas.
Newborns are placed on bed rest after being removed from incubators at Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital following a power outage, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Gaza, November 12, 2023, i
Qidra said the 300 liters would power the hospital for only half an hour and that Shifa needed 8,000 to 10,000 liters of fuel per day, delivered by the Red Cross or an international agency. An Israeli official who requested anonymity said 300 liters could last several hours because only emergency supplies were operating.
Dr El Mokhallalati, the surgeon, said premature babies who would normally be in individual incubators were lined up eight to a bed, kept warm with the remaining power.
After three deaths, there were 36 alive in the neonatal unit, he said. “We expect to lose more every day.”
A second major hospital in northern Gaza, al-Quds, also stopped operating. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it was surrounded by heavy fire and that a convoy of Red Cross vehicles sent to evacuate patients and staff had been unable to reach it.
UN agencies observed a minute’s silence on Monday to pay tribute to the 101 staff members killed so far, the highest toll of aid workers in any war since the founding of the UN on the ashes of the Second World War. The United Nations has been running a vast operation for generations in Gaza, where most residents are refugees.
A POLARIZED WORLD
The more than month-long conflict has polarized the world, with many countries saying even the shocking brutality of Hamas’s attacks did not justify an Israeli response that has killed so many civilians in overpopulated and besieged territory.
Israel says it must destroy Hamas and that responsibility for harm to civilians lies with the fighters hiding among them. He rejected demands for a ceasefire, which he said would only prolong the suffering by giving Hamas a chance to regroup. Washington supports this position, even if it nevertheless claims to put pressure on its ally to protect civilians.
“The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent patients receiving medical care are caught in the crossfire and we have had active consultations with the Israel Defense Forces on this matter,” said Jake Sullivan, White House national security adviser. CBS News.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians reportedly remain in northern Gaza despite Israel’s order to leave. Israel also regularly bombs the south. Health officials said at least 14 people were killed in two separate strikes in the main southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. At Nasser Hospital, people in private cars transported injured people, including children.
“There are bodies under the rubble, we need ambulances,” one of the men shouted.
The conflict raises fears of a wider conflagration. Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, has exchanged missile attacks with Israel. Other Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have launched at least 40 drone and rocket attacks against U.S. forces.
The United States carried out two airstrikes in Syria on Sunday against Iran-aligned groups, a U.S. defense official said.
