middle-east
Israeli troops battle militants across north Gaza, which has been without power or water for weeks
Israeli troops battled Palestinian militants in an urban refugee camp and outside a nearby hospital Tuesday as the army expanded operations across northern Gaza, where residents have been without electricity or reliable access to water, food and other basics for weeks.
The front line of the war, now in its seventh week, shifted to the Jabaliya refugee camp, a dense warren of concrete buildings near Gaza City that houses families displaced in the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israel has bombarded the area for weeks, and the military said Hamas fighters have regrouped there and in other eastern districts after being pushed out of much of Gaza City.
Fighting has also intensified outside the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where Palestinian health officials said a strike killed 12 people Monday. They said Tuesday that hundreds of patients and displaced people are trapped inside with dwindling supplies after some 200 were evacuated the day before.
Read: Israeli airstrike on south Lebanon kills 2 journalists of a pan-Arab TV station, official says
Senior Hamas officials, meanwhile, said they were close to reaching a deal through international mediators to release some of the estimated 240 people taken hostage by the group in its Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the war. The talks have repeatedly stalled and past predictions of a breakthrough proved premature.
In southern Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed two journalists with Al-Mayadeen TV, according to the Pan-Arab network and Lebanese officials. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has repeatedly traded fire with the Hezbollah militant group since the outbreak of the war.
DIRE CONDITIONS IN NORTH AND SOUTHThe war has exacted a heavy toll on Palestinian civilians, particularly those who remain in the north after Israel repeatedly called on people to flee south.
It's unclear how many stayed behind, but the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees estimates that some 160,000 people are still in its shelters there, even though it is no longer able to provide services. Some 1.7 million Palestinians, about three-fourths of Gaza's population, have fled their homes, many packing into U.N.-run schools and other facilities across the territory's south.
Read: Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
As shelters have overflowed, people have been forced to sleep on the streets outside, even as winter rains have pelted the coastal enclave in recent days. There are shortages of food, water and fuel for generators across all of Gaza, which has had no central electricity for over a month.
Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets throughout Gaza, including in the southern evacuation zone, often killing women and children, and officials have indicated it may soon expand its operations in the south.
FIGHTING IN JABALIYA AND AROUND HOSPITALSIsrael's military said forces are “preparing the battlefield” in the area of Jabaliya, saying they struck three tunnel shafts where fighters were hiding and destroyed rocket launchers. Footage released by the military showed Israeli soldiers patrolling on foot as gunfire echoed around them.
Residents said there had been heavy fighting as Israeli forces tried to advance under the cover of airstrikes. “The (Israeli) occupation is trying to besiege the camp,” said Hamza Abu Mansour, a university student. “They are facing stiff resistance.”
It was not possible to independently confirm details of the fighting.
In the face of airstrikes and advancing Israeli troops, tens of thousands of Palestinians in the north had sheltered in hospitals, but those have steadily been emptied as the fighting reached their gates, and most are no longer operational.
The hospital situation in Gaza is "catastrophic,” Michael Ryan, a senior World Health Organization official, said Monday. In the north, “it is the worst you can imagine.”
Munir al-Boursh, a senior Health Ministry official who said he was inside the Indonesian Hospital, told Al-Jazeera television by phone that Israeli forces had besieged it, forcing health workers to bury 50 bodies in the courtyard. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Palestinian officials said an Israeli shell struck the hospital on Monday, killing 12 people. Israel denied shelling the hospital, but said its troops returned fire on militants who targeted them from inside.
Up to 600 wounded people and some 2,000 displaced Palestinians remain stranded at the hospital, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
A similar standoff played out in recent days at Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, where over 250 patients and medical workers are stranded after the evacuation of 31 premature babies.
Israel has provided evidence in recent days of a militant presence at Shifa. But it has yet to substantiate its claims that Hamas had a major command center beneath the facility, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff.
Read: Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital
RISING TOLLMore than 12,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank. Officials there say another 4,000 are missing. Their counts do not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
The ministry bases its count on information gathered by its counterpart in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which has been unable to fully update casualty figures for more than 10 days because of the breakdown in services and communications in the north.
About 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mainly civilians during the Oct. 7 attack. The military says 68 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza ground operations.
TALKS ON HOSTAGESIsrael, the United States and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, have negotiated for weeks over a hostage release that would be paired with a temporary cease-fire and the entry of more aid.
Izzat Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said Tuesday that an agreement could be reached “in the coming hours," in which Hamas would release captives and Israel would release Palestinian prisoners. Hamas' leader-in-exile, Ismail Haniyeh, also said they were close to a deal.
Israel's war Cabinet met with representatives of the hostages’ families Monday evening. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families the government considers the release of hostages and the defeat of Hamas to be equally important, according to a relative who attended.
Udi Goren, whose cousin Tal Chaimi is in captivity in Gaza, said that was “incredibly disappointing," as Israel has said it could take months to dismantle the militant group.
Israeli airstrike on south Lebanon kills 2 journalists of a pan-Arab TV station, official says
An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed Tuesday two journalists reporting for the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV on the violence along the border with Israel, according to the Lebanese information minister and their TV station.
The strike also killed a Lebanese civilian, said the station.
The Pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV — politically allied with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — identified the journalists as correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari saying they were “martyred by treacherous Israeli targeting,” adding it was an airstrike.
Read: Israel battles Hamas near another Gaza hospital sheltering thousands
“It was direct targeting. It was not a coincidence,” said Ghassan bin Jiddo, director of the TV channel, holding back his tears in a live broadcast. They join "the martyrs of Gaza,” he said
Bin Jiddo said a man from the village, whom he identified as Hussein Akil, was also killed.
Last week, the Israeli government blocked Al-Mayadeen TV news channel from broadcasting in Israel.
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary called the strike on the journalists “outrageous.”
Read: With the world's eyes on Gaza, attacks are on the rise in the West Bank, which faces its own war
The Israeli military said it was looking into the matter.
Local media reported several Israeli strikes on South Lebanon Tuesday.
Lebanese State-run National News Agency said Israel’s military struck the outskirts of the villages of Teir Harfa and Majdal Zoun in South Lebanon. It also reported that another strike on a home in the border village of Kfar Kila killed a woman, Laiqa Serhan, 80, and wounded her granddaughter who was taken to hospital for treatment.
Israeli shelling on southern Lebanon on Oct. 14, killed Reuters videojournalist Issam Abduallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
Read: Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
The Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing daily exchange of fire between members of the militant Hezbollah group and Israeli troops. The clashes began a day after the Palestinian militant Hamas group carried out a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages.
Israel has since carried out a wide-scale military campaign in the Gaza Strip killing more than 12,700 people.
Israel battles Hamas near another Gaza hospital sheltering thousands
Israeli forces pressed their offensive against Hamas in northern Gaza on Monday, battling militants around a hospital where thousands of patients and displaced people have been sheltering for weeks, and where despite the fighting health officials managed to evacuate some of the wounded.
A medical worker inside the facility and the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a shell struck the second floor of the Indonesian Hospital, killing 12 people. Both blamed Israel, which denied shelling the hospital, saying its troops returned fire on militants who targeted them from inside the 3.5-acre (1.4 hectare) compound.
The Israeli offensive came as 28 premature babies evacuated from Gaza City's Shifa Hospital by the World Health Organization were transported to Egypt on Monday. Three others were transferred to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza, the Red Crescent said. More than 250 critically ill or wounded patients remain stranded at the Shifa compound, which Israeli forces stormed days ago.
Gaza's hospitals play a prominent role in the battle of narratives over the war's brutal toll on Palestinian civilians, thousands of whom have been killed or buried in rubble since the conflict was sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel. In the wake of the assault, Israeli leaders vowed to eradicate Hamas, destroy its ability to rule Gaza and uproot its militant infrastructure.
Israel says Hamas uses civilians as human shields and that the militants operated a major command hub inside and under Shifa, a claim hospital officials and Hamas deny. Critics say Israel's siege and relentless bombardment amount to collective punishment of the territory's 2.3 million Palestinians.
READ: 32 babies in critical condition are among the patients left at Gaza's main hospital, UN team says
Israeli troops were battling Hamas fighters in the Jabaliya refugee camp, a densely built-up district on Gaza City's northeastern side that has been heavily hit by bombardment for weeks. The military said that after moving through the center of the city to Shifa, its forces were now working to uproot Hamas fighters from eastern areas.
Dozens of dead and wounded in airstrikes and shelling overnight flowed into Indonesian Hospital, near Jabaliya, said Marwan Abdallah, the medical worker there. He said Israeli tanks were operating less than 200 meters (yards) away and Israeli snipers could be seen on the roofs of nearby buildings. As he spoke on the phone, the sound of gunfire could be heard in the background.
Hamas' Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, said roughly 200 wounded patients and their companions were evacuated from the hospital to southern Gaza in a rescue effort coordinated by the U.N. and the International Committee for the Red Cross. Many of the evacuees were being treated at al-Nasser hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis, he said.
Between 400 and 500 wounded remain at Indonesia Hospital, Ashraf told Al-Jazeera. Some 2,000 displaced Palestinians also are sheltering there.
READ: 31 premature babies are evacuated from Gaza's largest hospital, but scores of trauma patients remain
In a separate development that could relieve some of the pressure on Gaza's collapsing health system, dozens of trucks entered from Egypt on Monday with equipment from Jordan to set up a field hospital. Jordan’s state-run media said the hospital in Khan Younis would be up and running within 48 hours.
CLAIMS ABOUT SHIFA
More than 250 patients with severely infected wounds and other urgent conditions remain in Shifa. The complex can no longer provide most of the wounded there treatment after it ran out of water, medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators.
Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants outside its gates for days before entering the facility on Wednesday.
Israel’s army said it has evidence that Hamas maintained a sprawling command post inside and under the hospital’s 20-acre (8-hectare) complex, which includes several buildings.
On Sunday, the military released a video showing what it said was a tunnel discovered at the hospital, 55 meters (60 yards) long and about 10 meters (33 feet) below ground. It said the tunnel ended at a blast-proof door with a hole in it for gunmen to fire out of. Troops have not opened the door yet, it said.
READ: Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians, including 3 militants, as West Bank violence surges
Israeli forces also released security camera video showing what they said were two foreign hostages, one Thai and one Nepalese, who were captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack and taken to the hospital. Hamas said its fighters brought them in for medical care.
The army also said an investigation had determined that Israeli army Cpl. Noa Marciano, another captive whose body was recovered in Gaza, had been wounded in an Israeli strike on Nov. 9 that killed her captor, but was then killed by a Hamas militant in Shifa.
The military has previously released images of several guns it said were found inside an MRI lab and said that the bodies of two hostages were found near the complex.
The Associated Press was not able to independently confirm the military's findings.
THREE IN FOUR PEOPLE DISPLACED
Israel has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to leave northern Gaza and seek refuge in the south, which has also been under aerial bombardment. Some 1.7 million people, nearly three quarters of Gaza’s population, have been displaced, with 900,000 packing into crowded U.N.-run shelters, according to the U.N.
Strikes in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps Monday killed at least 40 people, according to hospital officials, and residents said dozens more were buried in the rubble. Bundled against a chilly wind from Gaza's approaching winter, a line of men prayed over more than a dozen bodies on the grounds of the nearby morgue in Deir al-Balah before loading them onto a truck.
READ: Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
More than 12,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank, which coordinates with officials in the Health Ministry of Hamas-run Gaza. Officials there say another 4,000 are missing. Their counts do not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
Violence also has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where attacks by Jewish settlers are on the rise and where more than 200 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, mostly in gunbattles triggered by Israeli military raids.
About 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mainly civilians during the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas dragged some 240 captives back into Gaza. The military says 66 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza ground operations.
Hamas has released four hostages, Israel has rescued one, and the bodies of two were found near Shifa.
Israel, the United States and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, have been negotiating a hostage release for weeks. Israel's three-member war Cabinet met with representatives of the hostages’ families Monday evening, and a relative of a hostage said the officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told families the government will not prioritize the hostages' release to defeating Hamas.
“What we’ve heard is that taking down Hamas and bringing the hostages are ... equally important,” said Udi Goren, whose cousin Tal Chaimi is in captivity in Gaza. “This is incredibly disappointing because ... we know that taking down Hamas, we keep hearing from them (it) is going to take months or years and it’s going to take a long time.”
Goren said the war cabinet did not share details about any possible deal to release the hostages.
With the world's eyes on Gaza, attacks are on the rise in the West Bank, which faces its own war
When Israeli warplanes swooped over the Gaza Strip following Hamas militants’ deadly attack on southern Israel, Palestinians say a different kind of war took hold in the occupied West Bank.
Overnight, the territory was closed off. Towns were raided, curfews imposed, teenagers arrested, detainees beaten, and villages stormed by Jewish vigilantes.
With the world’s attention on Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, the violence of war has also erupted in the West Bank. Israeli settler attacks have surged at an unprecedented rate, according to the United Nations. The escalation has spread fear, deepened despair, and robbed Palestinians of their livelihoods, their homes and, in some cases, their lives.
“Our lives are hell,” said Sabri Boum, a 52-year-old farmer who fortified his windows with metal grills last week to protect his children from settlers he said threw stun grenades in Qaryout, a northern village. “It's like I'm in a prison.”
Read: 32 babies in critical condition are among the patients left at Gaza's main hospital, UN team says
In six weeks, settlers have killed nine Palestinians, said Palestinian health authorities. They've destroyed 3,000-plus olive trees during the crucial harvest season, said Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas, wiping out what for some were inheritances passed through generations. And they've harassed herding communities, forcing over 900 people to abandon 15 hamlets they long called home, the U.N. said.
When asked about settler attacks, the Israeli army said only that it aims to defuse conflict and troops “are required to act” if Israel citizens violate the law. The army didn't respond to requests for comment on specific incidents.
U.S. President Biden and other administration officials have repeatedly condemned settler violence, even as they defended the Israeli campaign in Gaza.
“It has to stop,” Biden said last month. "They have to be held accountable."
That hasn't happened, according to Israeli rights group Yesh Din. Since Oct. 7, one settler has been arrested — over an olive farmer's death — and was released five days later, the group said. Two other settlers were placed in preventive detention without charge, it said.
Naomi Kahn, of advocacy group Regavim, which lobbies for settler interests, argued that settler attacks weren't nearly as widespread as rights groups report because it's a broad category including self-defense, anti-Palestinian graffiti and other nonviolent provocations.
“The entire Israeli system works not only to stamp out this violence but to prevent it,” she said.
Before the Hamas assault, 2023 already was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in over two decades, with 250 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire, most during military operations.
Over these six weeks of war, Israeli security forces have killed another 206 Palestinians, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the result of a rise in army raids backed by airstrikes and Palestinian militant attacks. In the deadliest West Bank raid since the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, of the 2000s, Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp Nov. 9, most of them militants.
Read: Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate
While for years settlers enjoyed the support of the Israeli government, they now have vocal proponents at the highest levels of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition. This month, Netanyahu appointed Zvi Sukkot, a settler temporarily banned from the West Bank in 2012 over alleged assaults targeting Palestinians and Israeli forces, to lead the subcommittee on West Bank issues in parliament.
Palestinians who've endured hardships of Israeli military rule, in its 57th year, say this war has left them more vulnerable than ever.
“We’ve become scared of tomorrow,” said Abdelazim Wadi, 50, whose brother and nephew were fatally shot by settlers, according to health authorities.
Conflict has long been part of daily life here, but Palestinians say the war has unleashed a new wave of provocations, disrupting even their grim routine.
THE SETTLERS IN FATIGUESIsrael captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. Settlers claim the West Bank as their biblical birthright. Most of the international community considers the settlements, home to 700,000 Israelis, illegal. Israel considers the West Bank disputed land, and says the settlements' fate should be decided in negotiations. International law says the military, as the occupying power, must protect Palestinian civilians.
Palestinians say that in nearly six decades of occupation, Israeli soldiers often failed to protect them from settler attacks or even joined in.
Since the war's start, the line between settlers and soldiers has blurred further.
Israel’s wartime mobilization of 300,000-plus reservists included the call-up of settlers for duty and put many in charge of policing their own communities. The military said in some cases, reservists who live in settlements replaced regular West Bank battalions deployed in the war.
Tom Kleiner, a reservist guarding Beit El, a religious settlement near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, said the Oct. 7 Hamas attack's brutality cemented his conviction that Palestinians are determined to “murder us.”
“We don’t kill Arabs without any reason,” he said. “We kill them because they’re trying to kill us.”
Rights groups say uniforms and assault rifles have inflated settlers' sense of impunity.
“Imagine that the military supposed to protect you is now made of settlers committing violence against you,” said Ori Givati, of Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group of former Israeli soldiers.
Bashar al-Qaryoute, a medic from the Palestinian village of Qaryout, said residents from the nearby settlement Shilo, now wearing fatigues, have blocked all but one road out. He said they smashed Qaryout’s water pipeline, forcing residents to truck in water at triple the price.
“They were the ones always burning olive trees and creating problems,” al-Qaryoute said. “Now they're in charge.”
THE CURFEW“Close it!” a soldier barked at Imad Abu Shamsiyya when he met the young man's eyes through his open window. Then, he pointed his rifle.
Over 52 years, Abu Shamsiyya has witnessed crises strike the heart of Hebron, the only place in which Jewish settlers live amid local residents, not in separate communities.
He thought life in the maze of barbed wire and security cameras couldn't get worse. Then came the war.
“This terror, these pressures,” he said, "are unlike before."
The Israeli military has barred 750 families in Hebron's Old City — where some 700 radical Jewish settlers live among 34,000 Palestinians under heavy military protection — from stepping outside except for one hour in the morning and one in the evening on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursday, said residents and Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.
Read: Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital
Schools have closed. Work has stopped. Sick people have moved in with relatives in the Palestinian-controlled part of town. Israeli settlers often roam at night, taunting Palestinians trapped indoors, according to footage published by B'Tselem.
Checkpoints instill dread. Soldiers who in the past just glanced at Abu Shamsiyya’s ID now search his phone and social media. They pat him down, he said, gawking and cursing.
“Hebron is a blatant microcosm of how Israel is exerting control over the Palestinians population,” said Dror Sadot, of B'Tselem.
The Israeli military didn't respond to a request for comment on the curfew.
THE SETTLER RAIDThe grinding of a bulldozer's gears. The crack of a gun. With a glance, parents let each other know the drill: Grab the children, lock the doors, keep away from windows.
Palestinians say settlers storm the northern village of Qusra almost daily, covering olive orchards in cement and dousing cars and homes in gasoline.
On Oct. 11, settlers tore through dusty streets, shooting at families in their homes. Within minutes, three Palestinian men were dead.
Israeli forces sent to disperse armed settlers and Palestinian stone-throwers fired into the crowd, killing a fourth villager, Palestinian officials said.
The next day, settlers heeded social-media calls to ambush a funeral procession the village coordinated with the army. They cut off roads and sprayed bullets at mourners who sprang from cars and sprinted through fields, attendees said.
Ibrahim Wadi, a 62-year-old chemist, and his 26-year-old son Ahmed, a lawyer, were killed. The funeral for four became one for six.
Settlers’ online posts rejoicing at the deaths, shared with The Associated Press, stung Ibrahim's brother, Abdelazim, almost as much as the loss.
“The mind breaks down, it stops comprehending,” he said.
THE GHOST TOWNFinance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should “wipe out” Palestinian town Hawara after a gunman killed two Israeli brothers in February, sending hundreds of settlers on a deadly rampage.
Another far-right religious lawmaker, Zvika Fogel, said he wanted to see the commercial hub “closed, incinerated."
Today, Hawara resembles a ghost town.
The army shuttered shops “to maintain public order” after Palestinian militant attacks, it said. Abandoned dogs roam among vandalized storefronts. Posters with a Talmudic justification for killing Palestinians adorn road blocks: “Rise and kill first."
From the war's start, much of the West Bank's main north-south highway has been closed to Palestinians, said anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now. Commutes that took 10 to 20 minutes now take hourslong detours on dangerous dirt roads.
The restrictions, said Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti, “have divided the West Bank into 224 ghettos separated by closed checkpoints.”
The 160,000 Palestinian laborers who passed those checkpoints to work in Israel and Israeli settlements before Oct. 7 lost their coveted permits overnight, said Israel's defense agency overseeing Palestinian civil matters. The agency allowed 8,000 essential workers to return to factories and hospitals earlier this month. There's no word on when the rest can.
“My grandfather relies on me, and now I have nothing,” said Ahmed, a 27-year-old from Hebron who lost his barista job in Haifa, Israel. He declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals.
“The pressure is building. We expect the West Bank to explode if nothing changes."
THE OLIVE HARVESTPalestinians wait all year for the autumn moment that olives turn from green to black. The two-month harvest is a beloved ritual and income boost.
Violence has marred the season. Soldiers and settlers blocked villagers from reaching orchards and used bulldozers to remove gnarled roots of centuries-old trees, they say.
Hafeeda al-Khatib, an 80-year-old farmer in Qaryout, said soldiers shot in the air and dragged her from her land when they caught her picking olives last week. It's the first year she can remember not having enough to make oil.
In a letter to Netanyahu this month, Smotrich called for a ban on Palestinians harvesting olives near Israeli settlements to reduce friction.
Palestinians say settlers' efforts have done the opposite.
“They've declared war on me,” said Mahmoud Hassan, a 63-year-old farmer in Khirbet Sara, a northern community. He said reservist settlers have surrounded it. If he ventures 100 meters (yards) to his grove, he said, soldiers standing sentry scream or fire into the air. He needs permission to leave home and return.
“There is no room anymore for talking to them or negotiating," he said.
The military said it “thoroughly reviewed” reports of violence against Palestinians and their property. “Disciplinary actions are implemented accordingly,” it said, without elaborating.
THE EVACUATIONRights groups say the goal of settler violence is to clear Palestinians from land they claim for a future state, making room for Jewish settlements to expand.
The Bedouin hamlet of Wadi al-Seeq was pushed to its breaking point by three detained Palestinians' ordeal over nine hours Oct. 12. The harrowing accounts were first reported by Israel’s Haaretz daily. Weeks of vigilante violence had already forced 10 families to flee when masked settlers in army uniforms barreled through that day, slamming a Bedouin resident and two Palestinian activists onto the ground and shoving them into pickups, villagers said.
One of the activists, 46-year-old Mohammed Matar, told AP they were bound, beaten, blindfolded, stripped to their underwear and burned by cigarettes.
Matar said reservist settlers urinated on him, penetrated him anally with a stick, and screamed at him to leave and go to Jordan.
When released, Matar left. So did Wadi al-Seeq’s 30 remaining families. They took their sheep to the creases of the hills east of Ramallah and abandoned everything else.
The Israeli military said it fired the commander in charge and was investigating.
Matar said that to move on, he needs Israel to hold someone accountable.
“I'd be satisfied with the bare minimum," he said, “the tiniest shred of justice.”
Tens of thousands of religious party supporters rally in Pakistan against Israel's bombing in Gaza
Tens of thousands of supporters from Pakistan’s main religious political party rallied in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday against Israel’s bombing of Palestinians in Gaza and what it said is the world’s failure to protect Gazans.
Amid anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans the emotionally charged crowd also called for jihad, or holy war.
Earlier this month, Jamaat-e-Islami held massive rallies in the port city of Karachi and the capital, Islamabad.
Supporters, including women and children, marched for several kilometers (miles) to reach the location of the rally, holding banners and posters with slogans opposing Israel and the United States and in support of the Palestinians.
Senator Sirajul Haq, the JI chief, said the ongoing rallies in support of Palestinians around the world awaken world governments and give a voice to the innocent.
He said the resolutions and words issued by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation will not work, and that Muslim rulers have to rise and to stop the hand of the aggressor.
32 babies in critical condition are among the patients left at Gaza's main hospital, UN team says
A United Nations team said Sunday that 291 patients were left at Gaza's largest hospital after Israeli troops had others evacuate. Those left included 32 babies in extremely critical condition, trauma patients with severely infected wounds and others with spinal injuries who are unable to move.
The team was able to tour Shifa Hospital for an hour after about 2,500 displaced people, mobile patients and medical staff left the sprawling compound Saturday morning, said the World Health Organization, which led the mission.
"Patients and health staff with whom they spoke were terrified for their safety and health, and pleaded for evacuation," the agency said, describing Shifa as a death zone. It said more teams will attempt to reach Shifa in coming days to try to evacuate the patients to southern Gaza, where hospitals are also overwhelmed.
Also read: Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians, including 3 militants, as West Bank violence surges
Israeli troops are staying in the hospital. Israel's military has been searching Gaza City's Shifa Hospital for a Hamas command center that it alleges is located under the facility — a claim Hamas and hospital staff deny.
Saturday's mass departure was portrayed by Israel as voluntary, but described by some of those leaving as a forced exodus.
"We left at gunpoint," Mahmoud Abu Auf told The Associated Press by phone after he and his family left the crowded hospital. "Tanks and snipers were everywhere inside and outside." He said he saw Israeli troops detain three men.
Elsewhere in northern Gaza, dozens of people were killed in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp when what witnesses described as an Israeli airstrike hit a crowded U.N. shelter in the main combat zone. It caused massive destruction in the camp's Fakhoura school, said wounded survivors Ahmed Radwan and Yassin Sharif.
"The scenes were horrifying. Corpses of women and children were on the ground. Others were screaming for help," Radwan said by phone. AP photos from a local hospital showed more than 20 bodies wrapped in bloodstained sheets.
The Israeli military, which had warned Jabaliya residents and others in a social media post in Arabic to leave, said only that its troops were active in the area "with the aim of hitting terrorists." It rarely comments on individual strikes, saying only that it targets Hamas while trying to minimize civilian harm.
Also read: Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
"Receiving horrifying images & footage of scores of people killed and injured in another UNRWA school sheltering thousands of displaced," Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, said on X, formerly Twitter.
In southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building on the outskirts of the town of Khan Younis, killing at least 26 Palestinians, according to a doctor at the hospital where the bodies were taken.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel's forces have begun operating in eastern Gaza City while continuing its mission in western areas. "With every passing day, there are fewer places where Hamas terrorists can operate," he said, adding that the militants would learn that in southern Gaza "in the coming days."
His comments were the clearest indication yet that the military plans to expand its offensive to southern Gaza, where Israel had told Palestinian civilians to flee early in the war.
The evacuation zone is already crammed with displaced civilians, and it was not clear where they would go if the offensive moves closer.
What led to the Shifa Hospital evacuation wasn't immediately known. Israel's military said it was asked by the hospital's director to help those who would like to leave do so, and that it did not order an evacuation. But Medhat Abbas, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the military ordered the facility cleared and gave the hospital an hour to get people out.
The U.N. team visiting after the evacuation said 25 medical staff remained, along with the patients. The World Health Organization said that in the next 24–72 hours, pending guarantees of safe passage, more missions were being arranged to evacuate to the Nasser Medical Complex and the European Gaza Hospital in southern Gaza.
Twenty-five of Gaza's hospitals aren't functioning due to a lack of fuel, damage and other problems, and the other 11 are only partially operational, according to the World Health Organization.
Israel has said hospitals in northern Gaza were a key target of its ground offensive, claiming they were used as militant command centers and weapons depots, which both Hamas and medical staff deny.
Internet and phone services were restored Saturday to Gaza, ending a telecommunications outage that had forced the United Nations to shut down critical aid deliveries.
The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted some 240 others. Fifty-two Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Also read: Israeli forces raid Gaza’s largest hospital, where hundreds of patients are stranded by fighting
More than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, believed buried under rubble. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants; Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that the Israeli military would have "full freedom" to operate within the territory after the war. The comments again put him in conflict with U.S. visions for a post-war Gaza.
In an op-ed published Saturday in The Washington Post, United States President Joe Biden said Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited and governed under a "revitalized Palestinian Authority" while world leaders work toward a peaceful two-state solution. Netanyahu has long opposed a Palestinian state.
The U.S. is providing weapons and intelligence support to Israel in its offensive to root out Hamas.
GROWING FRUSTRATION
Gaza's main power plant shut down early in the war, and Israel has cut off electricity. That makes fuel necessary to power generators needed to run water treatment plants, sanitation facilities, hospitals and other critical infrastructure for Gaza's 2.3 million people.
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said 120,000 liters (31,700 gallons) of fuel arrived for the U.N.'s use, meant to last for two days, after Israel agreed to the shipment. Israel also is allowing 10,000 liters (2,642 gallons) to keep internet and telephone systems running. It wasn't immediately clear when UNRWA would resume aid that was put on hold Friday during the communications blackout.
Gaza has received only 10% of its required food supplies each day in shipments from Egypt, according to the U.N., and the water system shutdown has left most of the population drinking contaminated water. Dehydration and malnutrition are growing, according to the U.N.'s World Food Program.
In Jerusalem, thousands of marchers — including family members and supporters of about 240 hostages held in Gaza by Hamas — arrived on the last leg of a five-day trek from Tel Aviv to plead with the government to do more to bring their loved ones home.
The Israeli military said its aircraft struck what it described as a hideout for militants in the urban refugee camp of Balata in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said five Palestinians were killed. The deaths raised the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the war began to 212.
Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents said Thursday, signaling a possible expansion of operations to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.
Meanwhile, soldiers continued searching Shifa Hospital in the north, in a raid that began early Wednesday but has yet to uncover evidence of the central Hamas command center that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza's largest, deny the allegations.
Broadening the offensive to the south — where Israel already carries out daily air raids — threatens to worsen an already severe humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. Over 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, with most having fled to the south, where food, water and electricity are increasingly scarce.
The war, now in its sixth week, was triggered by a wide-ranging Hamas attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which the militants killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and captured some 240 men, women and children. Israel responded with a weekslong air campaign and a ground invasion of northern Gaza, vowing to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.
Read: Israeli forces raid Gaza’s largest hospital, where hundreds of patients are stranded by fighting
More than 11,200 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, with most believed to be buried under the rubble. The official count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
SOME GUNS, BUT SO FAR NO TUNNELSIsraeli troops on Wednesday stormed into Gaza’s largest hospital, searching for traces of Hamas inside and beneath the facility, where newborns and hundreds of other patients have suffered for days without electricity and other basic necessities.
Troops were searching the underground levels of the hospital on Thursday and detained technicians responsible for running its equipment, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said in a statement.
After encircling Shifa for days, Israel faced pressure to prove its claim that Hamas was using the patients, staff and civilians sheltering there to provide cover for its fighters. The allegation is part of Israel's broader accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields.
The military released video from inside Shifa showed three duffel bags it said it found hidden around an MRI lab, each containing an assault rifle, grenades and Hamas uniforms, as well as a closet that contained a number of assault rifles without ammunition clips. The Associated Press could not independently verify the Israeli claims that the weapons were found inside the hospital.
Read: Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate
Hamas and Gaza health officials deny militants operate in Shifa — a hospital that employs some 1,500 people and has more than 500 beds. The Palestinians and rights groups accuse Israel of recklessly endangering civilians.
Munir al-Boursh, a senior official with Gaza’s Health Ministry inside the hospital, said that for hours, the troops ransacked the basement and other buildings, including those housing the emergency and surgery departments, and searched the grounds for tunnels. Troops questioned and face-screened patients, staff and people sheltering in the facility, he said, adding that he did not know if any were detained.
“Patients, women and children are terrified,” he told the AP by phone Wednesday.
The military said its troops killed four militants outside the hospital at the start of the operation, but through days of fighting there were no reports of militants firing from inside Shifa. There were also no reports of any fighting within the hospital after Israeli troops entered.
The military said it was carrying out a “precise and targeted operation" in a specific area of the hospital, and that its soldiers were accompanied by medical teams bringing in incubators and other supplies.
At one point, tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment were sheltering at Shifa, but most left in recent days as the fighting drew closer. The fate of premature babies at the hospital has drawn particular concern.
The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. There was no immediate word on the condition of another 36 babies, who the ministry said earlier were at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.
LOOKING SOUTHThe leaflets, dropped in areas east of the southern town of Khan Younis, warned civilians to evacuate the area and saying anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions “is putting his life in danger.” Similar leaflets were dropped over northern Gaza for weeks ahead of the ground invasion.
Two local reporters who live east of Khan Younis confirmed seeing the leaflets. Others shared images of the leaflets on social media.
Read: As fighting empties north Gaza, humanitarian crisis worsens in south
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday the ground operation will eventually “include both the north and south. We will strike Hamas wherever it is.”
The military says it has largely consolidated its control of the north, including seizing and demolishing government buildings. Video released by the army Thursday showed soldiers moving between heavily damaged buildings through holes blown in their walls.
On Thursday, the military said it had blown up a residence belonging to Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader based abroad. It was unclear if anyone was inside the building.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have already crowded into the territory’s south, where a worsening fuel shortage threatens to paralyze the delivery of humanitarian services and shut down mobile phone and internet service.
Conditions in southern Gaza have been deteriorating as bombardment continues to level buildings. Residents say bread is scarce and supermarket shelves are bare. Families cook on wood fires for lack of fuel. Central electricity and running water have been out for weeks across Gaza.
Israel allowed a small amount of fuel to enter Gaza for on Wednesday, for the first time since the war began, so that the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which is providing basic services to hundreds of thousands of people, could continue bringing limited supplies of aid through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
The fuel cannot be used for hospitals or to desalinate water, and covers less than 10% of what the agency needs to sustain "lifesaving activities,” said Thomas White, the agency’s Gaza director.
The Palestinian telecom company Paltel, meanwhile, said it expected services to halt later Wednesday because of the lack of fuel or electricity. Gaza has experienced three previous mass communication outages since the ground invasion.
If Israeli troops move south, it is not clear where Gaza’s population can flee, as Egypt refuses to allow a mass transfer onto its soil.
Israeli forces raid Gaza’s largest hospital, where hundreds of patients are stranded by fighting
Israeli forces raided Gaza's largest hospital early Wednesday, where hundreds of patients, including newborns, have been stranded with dwindling supplies and no electricity, as the army extended its control across Gaza City and the north.
Shifa Hospital has become a symbol of the widespread suffering of Palestinian civilians during the war between Israel and Hamas, which erupted after the militant group killed some 1,200 people and seized around 240 captives in a surprise Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.
The hospital is also at the heart of clashing narratives over who is to blame for the thousands of deaths and widespread destruction in the besieged territory. Israel accuses Hamas of using Palestinians as human shields, while Palestinians and rights groups say Israel has recklessly endangered civilians as it seeks to eradicate the group.
Israeli military forces raid Gaza's largest hospital in operation against Hamas
'A TERRIFYING SITUATION'
Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, said Israeli tanks were inside the medical compound and that soldiers had entered buildings, including the emergency and surgery departments, which house intensive care units. It was not clear if he was speaking from inside the compound.
"The occupation forces stormed the buildings," he said angrily over the phone. He said the patients, including children, are terrified. "They are screaming. It's a very terrifying situation ... we can do nothing for the patients but pray."
The Israeli military said it was carrying out a "precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital." It said the soldiers were accompanied by medical teams and had brought medical supplies and baby food as well as incubators and other equipment.
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Israel says Hamas has a massive command center inside and beneath Shifa, but has not provided visual evidence, while Hamas and the hospital staff have repeatedly denied the allegations.
Hours before the raid, the United States said its own intelligence indicated militants have used Shifa and other hospitals — and tunnels beneath them — to support military operations and hold hostages.
The Israeli military said that the forces raiding Shifa are also searching for hostages. The plight of the captives, who include men, women and children, has galvanized Israeli support for the war, and families and supporters of the hostages are holding a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Two and a half weeks after sending tanks and ground troops into northern Gaza, Israeli forces also claimed control of several key buildings and a downtown neighborhood in Gaza City.
A TRICKLE OF FUEL FOR AID WORKERS
Most of the hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City and surrounding areas have fled after weeks of Israeli bombardments. Hardly any aid has been delivered to the the north, which has been without power or running water for weeks.
Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate
More than 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, and two thirds of the territory's 2.3 million people have fled their homes. About 2,700 people have been reported missing, with most believed to be buried under the rubble. The ministry's count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
Almost the entire population of Gaza has squeezed into the southern two-thirds of the tiny territory, where conditions have been deteriorating as bombardment there continues.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that its fuel depot in Gaza was empty and that it would soon cease relief operations, including bringing limited supplies of food and medicine in from Egypt for the more than 600,000 people sheltering in severely overcrowded U.N.-run schools and other facilities in the south.
Israeli defense officials changed course early Wednesday to allow some 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons) of fuel in for humanitarian efforts, officials said. Earlier, they repeatedly rejected allowing fuel into Gaza, saying Hamas would divert it for military use.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian affairs, said it would allow U.N. trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It said the decision was made in response to a request from the U.S.
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HOSPITALS OUT OF SERVICE
The raid into Shifa sparked condemnation from Jordan and the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which called it a violation of international law. U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said he was "appalled" by the raid, saying the protection of civilians "must override all other concerns."
Hospitals can lose their protected status if combatants use them for military purposes, but civilians must be given ample time to flee, and any attack must be proportional to the military objective.
Thousands of displaced people who had been sheltering at Shifa, along with patients who were able to move, had fled the medical compound in Gaza City through a corridor established by Israeli forces in recent days as Israeli troops encircled the complex and battled Hamas militants outside its gates. Some Palestinians who made it out said Israeli forces had fired at evacuees.
As fighting empties north Gaza, humanitarian crisis worsens in south
Shifa had stopped operations over the weekend, as its supplies dwindled and a lack of electricity left it no way to run incubators and other lifesaving equipment. After days without refrigeration, morgue stuff dug a mass grave Tuesday for 120 bodies in a courtyard.
The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa's emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. Another 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators, according to the ministry.
BATTLE IN GAZA CITY
Israeli troops have extended their control across northern Gaza, capturing the territory's legislature building and police headquarters. But independent accounts of the fighting in Gaza City have been nearly impossible to gather, as communications with the north have largely collapsed.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces have completed the takeover of Shati refugee camp, a densely built district, and are moving about freely in the city as a whole.
Inside some of the newly captured buildings, soldiers held up the Israeli flag and military flags in celebration. In a nationally televised news conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had "lost control" of northern Gaza and that Israel made significant gains in Gaza City.
But asked about the time frame for the war, Gallant said: "We're talking about long months, not a day or two."
The military says its forces have found weapons and eliminated fighters in government buildings, schools and residential buildings.
Israel says it has killed several thousand fighters, including important mid-level commanders, while 46 of its own soldiers have been killed in Gaza.
Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate
Gaza's Shifa Hospital has become the focus of a dayslong stalemate in Israel's war against the Hamas militant group.
Shifa is Gaza's largest and best-equipped hospital. Israel, without providing visual evidence, claims the facility also is used by Hamas for military purposes. It says Hamas has built a vast underground command complex center below the hospital, connected by tunnels, something Gaza health officials and Hamas deny.
Since Israel declared war against Hamas in response to a deadly cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, its forces have moved in on Shifa. While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, Palestinians say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees and that it is too dangerous to move the most vulnerable patients. Meanwhile, doctors say the facility has run out of fuel and that patients are beginning to die.
Here is a closer look at the Shifa standoff.
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A HOSPITAL AND A SHELTER
Shifa is the leading hospital in a health care system that has largely collapsed after years of conflict, chronic underfunding and an Israeli-Egyptian blockade aimed at weakening Hamas.
Shifa has over 500 beds and services like MRI scans, dialysis and an intensive care unit. It conducts roughly half of all the medical operations that take place in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
After the war erupted, tens of thousands crammed into the hospital grounds to seek shelter. As the war has moved closer to the hospital, most of those huddling there have fled south — joining some two-thirds of the territory's 2.3 million residents who have left their homes.
But hundreds of people, including medical workers, premature babies and other vulnerable patients, remain, staffers say.
On Saturday, the hospital announced that its last generator had run out of fuel. Health officials say at least 32 patients, including three babies, have died. They say 36 other babies are at risk of dying because life-saving equipment can't function.
The Health Ministry released a photo Monday showing about a dozen premature babies wrapped in blankets on a bed to keep them warm. "I hope that they will remain alive despite the disaster in which this hospital is passing through," said ministry spokesman Medhat Abbas.
As fighting empties north Gaza, humanitarian crisis worsens in south
International law gives hospitals special protections during war. Hospitals can lose those protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Still, there must be plenty of warning to allow evacuation of staff and patients. If harm to civilians from an attack is disproportionate to the military objective, it is illegal under international law.
ISRAEL'S CASE AGAINST HAMAS
Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. The group often fires rockets toward Israel from crowded residential areas, and its fighters have battled Israeli troops inside densely populated neighborhoods.
Throughout the war, Israel has released photos and video footage showing what it says are weapons and other military installations inside or next to mosques, schools and hospitals.
Late Monday, Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, showed footage of what he said was a Hamas weapons cache found in the basement of Gaza's Rantisi Hospital for Children.
Hagari said he entered the hospital with Israeli troops on Monday, a day after the facility's last patients were evacuated. The hospital ran out of fuel last week, and Israel had ordered people to leave as it conducts its ground offensive.
Hagari entered a room decorated with a colorful children's drawing of a tree, with weapons lying across the floor. He said they included explosive vests, automatic rifles, bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.
"Hamas uses hospitals as an instrument of war," he said.
He showed another area that he said appears to have been used to hold hostages.
It included what appeared to be a hastily installed toilet and air vent, a baby bottle and a motorcycle — scarred by a bullet hole and apparently used to carry hostages. One windowless room had curtains on the wall that he said could be used as a backdrop in a video. Hagari said forensic experts were examining the scenes.
"This is not the last hospital like this in Gaza, and the world should know that," Hagari said.
The army has claimed that Hamas is operating inside Shifa and underneath it in bunkers, some of which it says are accessible from the hospital itself. It also claims hundreds of Hamas fighters sought shelter at Shifa after the Oct. 7 massacre, in which at least 1,200 people in Israel were killed.
Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital
Israel says these claims are based on intelligence. However, it has released no visual evidence to support the claims. Hagari last month unveiled maps showing where Israel believes Hamas' underground command centers are located, including one next to hospital's reception area and another next to the dialysis department.
He also showed off simulated illustrations of what these centers allegedly look like, but acknowledged: "This is only an illustration."
Israel also released a video of what it said was a captured militant answering questions during an interrogation. The militant, speaking quietly but clearly under duress, says that most tunnels are "hidden in hospitals."
"At Shifa, for example, there are underground levels," the militant says. "Shifa is not small. It's a big place that can hide things."
The army also released a voice recording of what it says are two anonymous Palestinians in Gaza discussing the presence of a tunnel under Shifa. The recording could not be verified.
Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, rejected the Israeli claims about Shifa as "false and misleading propaganda."
"The occupying forces have no evidence to prove it," Hamad said. "We have never used civilians as human shields because it goes against our religion, morality and principles."
Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, said Tuesday that the hospital repeatedly invited international organizations to tour Shifa, but has not received a response.
Battles force Palestinians out of hospitals in Gaza, leaving patients, babies stranded
HOW WILL THE STANDOFF END?
Israel on Sunday said it had tried to deliver some 300 liters (about 80 gallons) of fuel to the hospital in plastic containers several hundred meters (yards) from the facility. But as of Monday, the fuel had apparently not been taken.
Israel accused Hamas of preventing medical workers from retrieving the containers. Hospital officials said the fuel should be delivered by the Palestinian Red Crescent and that the quantity of fuel was insufficient in any case.
Israel offered safe passage for people to leave. But those who tried to go described a terrifying experience.
Goudhat Samy al-Madhoun, a health care worker, said some 50 people left the facility on Monday, including a woman who had been receiving kidney dialysis. He said Israeli forces fired on the group several times, wounding one man who had to be left behind.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday said the hospital "must be protected" and called for "less intrusive action" by Israeli forces.
"It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action," Biden said in the Oval Office.
The Israeli army has said it is aware of the complexities, but says Hamas should not expect immunity.
"We're not looking to take control of hospitals. We're looking to dismantle their infrastructure," said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, another Israeli army spokesman.
"We'll go in, we'll do what we have to do and leave," he said. "What it's going to look like, it's hard to say."
As fighting empties north Gaza, humanitarian crisis worsens in south
Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza since Nov. 5, the U.N. humanitarian office said Tuesday, as Israeli ground forces battle Palestinian militants around hospitals where patients, newborns and medics are stranded with no electricity and dwindling supplies.
The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, says only one hospital in the north is capable of receiving patients. All the others are no longer able to function and mostly serve as shelters from the fighting, including Gaza’s largest, Shifa, which is surrounded by Israeli troops and where 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.
The war, now in its sixth week, was triggered by Hamas' surprise attack into Israel, in which militants massacred hundreds of civilians and dragged some 240 hostages back to Gaza. Israel launched heavy airstrikes for nearly three weeks before sending troops and tanks into the north. The war has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and wreaked widespread destruction on the impoverished coastal enclave.
Read: Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital
Israel has urged civilians to evacuate Gaza City and surrounding areas in the north, but the southern part of the besieged territory is not much safer. Israel carries out frequent airstrikes from north to south, hitting what it says are militant targets but often killing women and children.
U.N.-run shelters in the south are severely overcrowded, with an average of one toilet for 160 people. In all, some 1.5 million Palestinians, more than two thirds of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes.
People stand in line for hours for scarce bread and brackish water. Trash is piling up, sewage is flooding the streets and taps run dry because there is no fuel for water pumps or treatment plants. Israel has barred fuel imports since the start of the war, saying Hamas would use it for military purposes.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which is struggling to provide basic services to over 600,000 people sheltering in schools and other facilities in the south, said it may run out of fuel by Wednesday, forcing it to halt most aid operations. It said it was unable to continue importing limited supplies of food and medicine through Egypt's Rafah crossing, Gaza's only link to the outside world.
With Israeli forces fighting Palestinian militants in the center of Gaza City, the territory's main city, both sides have seized on the plight of hospitals. Images of doctors trying to keep newborns warm at Shifa have circulated widely.
Read: Thousands flee Gaza's main hospital but hundreds, including babies, still trapped by fighting
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its fighters, alleging that Hamas has set up its main command center in and beneath Shifa, without providing visual evidence. Both Hamas and Shifa Hospital staff deny the Israeli allegations.
On Monday, the military released footage of a children's hospital that its forces entered over the weekend, showing weapons it said it found inside, as well as rooms in the basement where it believes the militants were holding hostages.
“Hamas uses hospitals as an instrument of war,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the army’s chief spokesperson, standing in a room of the Rantisi Children's Hospital decorated with a colorful children’s drawing of a tree. Explosive vests, grenades and RPGs were displayed on the floor.
Meanwhile, gunfire and explosions raged Monday around Shifa, which Israeli troops encircled over the weekend. Tens of thousands of people have fled the hospital in the past few days and headed to the southern Gaza Strip, including large numbers of displaced people who had taken shelter there.
For weeks, Shifa staff members running low on supplies have performed surgery on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia and using vinegar as antiseptic. After the weekend's mass exodus, about 650 patients and 500 staff remain in the hospital, which can no longer function, along with around 2,500 displaced Palestinians sheltering inside with little food or water.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said 32 patients, including three babies, have died since its emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. It said 36 babies, as well as other patients, are at risk of dying because life-saving equipment cannot function.
Early Tuesday, the Israeli military said in a statement that it had started an effort to transfer incubators from Israel to Shifa. It wasn't clear if the incubators had been delivered or how they will be powered.
International law gives hospitals special protections during war. Hospitals can lose those protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, but staff and patients must be given plenty of warning to evacuate, and the harm to civilians cannot be disproportionate to the military objective.
Read: Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital as Netanyahu dismisses calls for a cease-fire
The International Committee of the Red Cross tried Monday to evacuate some 6,000 patients, staff and displaced people from another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds. But the Red Cross said its convoy had to turn back because of shelling and fighting. Israel released a video showing what it said was a militant with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher entering Al-Quds Hospital. An Israeli tank was stationed nearby.
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses to allow wider distribution of badly needed aid. Israel has agreed only to daily windows during which civilians can flee northern Gaza on foot along two main roads.
As of last Friday, 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.
Health officials have not updated the toll, citing the difficulty of collecting information.
At least 1,200 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Palestinian militants. The military says 46 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza, and that thousands of militants have been killed.
About 250,000 Israelis have evacuated from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants still fire barrages of rockets, and along the northern border, where Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group have repeatedly traded fire since the start of the war.