middle-east
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.
Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital
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. But Israel 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.
Since Israel declared war against Hamas in response to a bloody cross-border attack by the Islamic group 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.
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.
Read: Battles force Palestinians out of hospitals in Gaza, leaving patients, babies stranded
Shifa boasts 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 it 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.
International law gives hospitals special protections during war. But hospitals can lose those protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Read: More than 180,000 people across France march against soaring antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war
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 HAMASIsrael 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.
Read: Thousands flee Gaza's main hospital but hundreds, including babies, still trapped by fighting
“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.
Israel says these claims are based on intelligence. However, it has released little 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."
Read: Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital as Netanyahu dismisses calls for a cease-fire
Other Israeli evidence has been equally difficult to verify.
Israel 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.”
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.
Read: UN agencies' Regional Directors call for immediate action to halt attacks on Gaza hospitals
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.”
Battles force Palestinians out of hospitals in Gaza, leaving patients, babies stranded
Battles around hospitals have forced thousands of Palestinians to flee from some of the last shelters in northern Gaza while stranding critically wounded patients, including newborns, and their caregivers with dwindling supplies and no electricity, health officials said Monday.
The Israeli military has urged Palestinians to flee south on foot through what it calls safe corridors. But its purported drive to separate civilians from Hamas has come at a heavy cost, with more than two thirds of the territory’s population of 2.3 million having already fled their homes.
Thousands flee Gaza's main hospital but hundreds, including babies, still trapped by fighting
As Israeli troops encircled Gaza's Shifa Hospital over the weekend, thousands fled, while hundreds of patients and displaced people remained, according to officials. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Shifa “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”
Another hospital in Gaza City, Al-Quds, was forced to shut down Sunday because it ran out of fuel. The Palestinian Red Crescent, which operates the facility, said Israeli forces are stationed nearby and that preparations are being made to evacuate some 6,000 patients, medics and displaced people.
Hundreds of thousands march in London, calling for ceasefire in Gaza
Both sides have seized on the plight of hospitals, particularly Shifa's, as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week. The fighting was triggered by Hamas' unprecedented Oct. 7 surprise attack into Israel, and Israel's response has brought unseen levels of death and destruction to Gaza.
For Palestinians, Shifa evokes the suffering of civilians. Thousands of people displaced by airstrikes that have destroyed entire city blocks have sought shelter in its darkened corridors. Doctors running low on supplies perform surgery there on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia. One medic shared a photo showing nine premature babies in a shared crib.
For news organizations, the flood of Gaza war video is proving both illuminating and troubling
Israel says Hamas shields itself among civilians and the hospital, Gaza’s largest, is a prime example of that, claiming that the militants have a command center in and beneath the medical compound. Israel has not provided photos or videos to back up the Shifa claims, though it has shared footage of militants operating in residential neighborhoods and positioning rockets and weapons near schools and mosques.
Both Hamas and the hospital staff at Shifa deny the Israeli allegations.
A U.N. health official said many displaced families and patients with moderate injuries fled the hospital over the weekend. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said most of the remaining patients could only be relocated with ambulances and other special procedures.
Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, said those who remain include about 650 patients, 500 medical staff and around 2,500 displaced Palestinians sheltering inside hospital buildings. That's down from more than 20,000 people reported to be at the hospital on Saturday by the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The ministry said 32 patients, including three babies, have died since the hospital's emergency generator ran out of fuel on Saturday. It said 36 babies, as well as other patients, are at risk of dying because there is no way to power life-saving medical equipment.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity that has supported Shifa's neonatal intensive care unit, said transferring critically ill infants is complex. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital ... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely," CEO Melanie Ward said. She said the only option was to pause the fighting and allow in fuel.
The military said it placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near the hospital, but that Hamas had prevented staff from reaching it. The Health Ministry disputed that and said the fuel would have provided less than an hour of electricity.
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid. Israel has only agreed to daily windows during which civilians can flee ground combat in northern Gaza along two main roads, while continuing to strike what it says are militant targets across the territory, often killing women and children.
Even so, tens of thousands of people remain in the north, where Israeli ground forces are battling Hamas.
Saib Abu Hashish said he has been trapped on the ground floor of his family home along with 27 others in Gaza City. They haven't left the house in three days and are running out of food and water. He said their neighbors attempted to escape the area on Sunday, but Israeli forces opened fire on them.
“We want to leave but we can’t because of the bombing,” he said by phone. “If we survive the bombing, we will die from hunger.”
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, many of whom work out of Shifa, have not updated that toll since Friday because of 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 are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid, including men, women, children and older adults. The military says 44 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.
About 250,000 Israelis have evacuated from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israel and the Hezbollah group have repeatedly traded fire, including on Monday.
Thousands flee Gaza's main hospital but hundreds, including babies, still trapped by fighting
Thousands of people appear to have fled from Gaza's largest hospital as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants battle outside its gates, but hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies at risk of dying because of a lack of electricity, remained inside, health officials said Monday.
With only intermittent communications, it was difficult to reconcile competing claims from the Israeli military, which said it was providing a safe corridor for people to move south, and Palestinian health officials inside the hospital, who said the compound was surrounded by constant heavy gunfire.
The military also said it had placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near the hospital to help power its generators, but that Hamas militants had prevented staff from reaching it. The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza disputed that, and said the fuel would have provided less than an hour of electricity.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Shifa has been without water for three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore," in a post on social media.
Both sides have seized on the hospital's plight as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week. The fighting was triggered by Hamas' unprecedented Oct. 7 surprise attack into Israel, and Israel's response has brought unseen levels of death and destruction to Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinian residents, nearly two-thirds of whom have had to flee their homes with no safe refuge available in the besieged territory.
Read: For news organizations, the flood of Gaza war video is proving both illuminating and troubling
For Palestinians, Shifa evokes the suffering of civilians. Doctors running low on supplies perform surgery on war-wounded patients, including children, without anesthesia. Thousands of people displaced by airstrikes that have destroyed entire city blocks have sought shelter in its darkened corridors.
Israel says the hospital is the prime example of Hamas's alleged use of human shields, claiming — without evidence — that the militants have a command center and other military infrastructure in and beneath the medical compound. Hamas and hospital staff deny those allegations.
Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, says there are about 650 patients and critically wounded people in Shifa being treated by around 500 medical staff. He estimated that around 2,500 displaced Palestinians are sheltering inside hospital buildings.
On Saturday, the Health Ministry estimated that some 3,000 medics and patients, as well as 15,000 to 20,000 displaced people, were sheltering there.
A U.N. health official said many displaced families and patients with moderate injuries fled Shifa as Israeli forces encircled the hospital over the weekend. The official, who was not authorized to brief reporters and so spoke on condition of anonymity, said most of the remaining patients could only be relocated with ambulances and other special procedures.
It's unclear where they would go, as several hospitals and clinics in Gaza have been forced to shut down, while others are already working at full capacity with dwindling supplies.
Read: Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital as Netanyahu dismisses calls for a cease-fire
The Health Ministry says three babies and four other patients have died since the hospital's emergency generator ran out of fuel on Saturday. It said another 36 babies and other patients are at risk of dying because there is no way to power life-saving medical equipment.
The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday, without saying how it would transport them or where they would be relocated. There was no indication Monday that any had been moved.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity that has supported Shifa's neonatal intensive care unit, said transferring critically ill infants is complex. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital ... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely," CEO Melanie Ward said. She said the only option was to pause the fighting and allow in fuel.
Christos Christou, the president of Doctors Without Borders, an international aid group, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” it would take weeks to evacuate the patients.
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the territory, where conditions are increasingly dire.
But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main roads. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, often killing women and children.
Read: Fights in bread lines, despair in shelters: War threatens to unravel Gaza's close-knit society
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, many of whom work out of Shifa, have not updated that toll since Friday because of the difficulty of accessing hard-hit areas and collecting information.
At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Palestinian militants are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid, including men, women, children and older adults. The military says 48 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.
About 250,000 Israelis have evacuated from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israel and the Hezbollah militant group have repeatedly traded fire, risking a wider conflict. Attacks by Hezbollah on Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 others, Israel’s military and rescue services said.
For news organizations, the flood of Gaza war video is proving both illuminating and troubling
A camera livestreaming the skyline of Gaza City captures streaks of light. Dash-cam video from a car in Israel spots a killer coming into view. A satellite identifies tank tracks in the dirt, and a mall security camera catches the moment a bomb in Gaza detonates.
While journalists' access to the war in Gaza is limited, a flood of video from all sorts of sources documents what is — and isn't — going on.
At news organizations, sifting through material found online to determine what is real, and to unearth the sometimes unexpected clues that can be used to tie stories together, are increasingly important — and often emotionally overwhelming — jobs.
"It has become a key part of doing journalism in the modern age," said Katie Polglase, a London-based investigative producer for CNN.
Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital as Netanyahu dismisses calls for a cease-fire
CBS News last week announced the launch of "CBS News Confirmed," the formation of a team to use data and technology to study online evidence. Earlier this year, the similar "BBC Verify" unit was formed to bring more open source reporting methods to the worldwide news outlet.
The buildup of this capability was seen most prominently when The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and The Associated Press did in-depth analyses of video evidence — including those streaks in the sky — to try and determine the disputed cause of a deadly Oct. 17 explosion at Gaza's al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
There was no unanimity — and some caution about drawing conclusions absent an ability to examine evidence on the ground.
NO LONGER JUST ON THE SCENE
In an earlier era, viewers generally saw the aftermath of a news event unless television cameras happened to be on the scene. Now, with millions of people carrying phones that have video cameras, the aftermath isn't good enough. The buzzword is "now."
Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital and people trapped inside say they cannot flee
"The reality is that audiences expect to participate in a shared viewing experience, to learn what is going on along with anchors and reporters," said Wendy McMahon, president of CBS News and Stations.
That means combing through an endless supply of video posted on sources like X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, Telegram and Facebook. Much is harrowing: images of mangled bodies, bloodied children carried out of rubble, people distraught at the loss of loved ones. The effect of seeing such images is known by those who must watch them frequently as "vicarious trauma."
Combatants know well the power of such images, which explains why some Hamas members wore cameras to document their Oct. 7 killing spree in Israel. Meanwhile, Israel compiled and has been showing grisly images of that day to journalists.
"The degree to which social media has been used is very sophisticated," said Rhona Tarrant, senior editor at the investigative site Storyful. "There's so much information. There's so much content."
News organizations are constantly weighing their job to convey reality against the concern that violent images are too traumatizing for consumers to see. Too much can desensitize viewers. Yet sometimes the repetition — the ongoing grind of war — is a story in itself.
Netanyahu rejects growing international calls for a cease-fire in Gaza
Through images that have appeared online in recent weeks, people "learned" about Bella Hadid, a model of Palestinian descent, denouncing Hamas' attack in Israel; a row of supposed bodies of dead Palestinians covered in white shrouds where one mysteriously moved; and a Palestinian "actor" seriously wounded in a hospital bed one day and walking unharmed the next.
None of it happened. All of the images were fake.
Video of Hadid accepting an award for activism in Lyme Disease was manipulated to make it seem like different words were coming from her mouth. The "moving body" video came from a 2013 protest rally in Egypt. The supposed "actor" was two separate people, and the image of one in a hospital bed preceded the start of the war.
That's where the sleuthing skills of journalists studying video comes into play. Much of what is online now comes from past conflicts, including in Gaza itself, being passed off as new; search engines exist to help determine the truth. Sometimes images from video games are passed off as real, but experts can usually spot them.
"This war in many respects has confirmed our working assumption, that news organizations would see an influx of deep fakes and misinformation at a scale that was never seen before," McMahon said.
HOW POTENT IS AI'S POWER?
Although the advance of artificial intelligence is a great fear, some experts says its use so far in this war has been limited in comparison to, say, old video being passed off as new. "People believe that AI is more powerful than it is at the moment," said James Law, editor-in-chief at Storyful.
While debunking falsehoods is a big part of what journalists are doing, the use of video and other publicly available material — the definition of open-source reporting — has also come into its own in recent weeks.
Storyful, which formed in 2009 to help news organizations make sense of all that is out there, is particularly adept at this new form of detective work. Its investigators use many tools, including mapping software, flight-tracking, security cameras, news agency videos.
‘From the river to the sea': Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas war
Often people are shooting footage, and something else that happens to be there — like leftover fragments from a bomb — can be clues for another story entirely, Polglase said.
Maps, video and audio from different sources can be pulled together for stories on how particular events unfolded, such as the Hamas attack on an outdoor concert the morning of Oct. 7. CNN's investigation of this event, for example, illustrated how concertgoers were directed toward shelters they thought would be safe but turned out to be killing grounds.
The New York Times used video and Telegram postings to show how false claims that Israelis were going to settle in a Muslim area of Russia led to a mob attacking a plane.
Satellite images, video and photos helped The Washington Post track where Israeli forces went during their initial incursion into Gaza. Through videos and reporting, the BBC told about four sites in southern Gaza that were bombed and checked to see what kind of warning Israel offered to civilians that it was coming.
Part of the "CBS News Confirmed" initiative involves the hiring of journalists who are skilled in this type of reporting. Beyond concentrating on specific teams, organizations like the AP and BBC are training journalists throughout the world in some of these techniques.
Yet some of this work comes with a price. News outlets have long worried about the physical safety of journalists stationed in war zones, and are now becoming cognizant that spending hours watching disturbing video can be an emotional drain.
The investigative site Bellingcat tells employees to protect their mental health. "Always ask yourself if there is a genuine reason you need to view this footage," advises Charlotte Maher, its social media critic. And one expert offers this advice: Turn off the sound after hearing something once because the audio can be as disturbing as what can be seen.
At Storyful, employees area encouraged to talk about what they're going through and take advantage of counseling services if needed, all under a common message: You don't need to just suck it up. Says Tarrant: "It certainly does take a toll on the team."
Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital as Netanyahu dismisses calls for a cease-fire
Health officials and people trapped inside Gaza’s largest hospital rejected Israel’s claims that it was helping babies and others evacuate Sunday, saying fighting continued just outside the facility where incubators lay idle with no electricity and critical supplies were running out.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed urgent calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all the nearly 240 hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war.
A day after Netanyahu said Israel was bringing its “full force” with the aim of ending Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling, including around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff.
“They are outside, not far from the gates,” said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident sheltering there.
Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital and people trapped inside say they cannot flee
The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry. It said another 36 babies are at risk of dying.
Israel’s military asserted it placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near Shifa overnight for an emergency generator powering incubators for premature babies and coordinated the delivery with hospital officials. But the military said Hamas prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel.
A Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, disputed the account and also told Al Jazeera the fuel would not be enough to operate the generator an hour. “This is a mockery towards the patients and children,” Al-Qidra said.
Speaking to CNN, Netanyahu asserted that “100 or so” people had been evacuated from Shifa and that Israel had created safe corridors.
Netanyahu rejects growing international calls for a cease-fire in Gaza
But Health Ministry Undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement.
“There are wounded in the house, and we can’t reach them,” he told Al Jazeera. “We can’t stick our heads out of the window.”
The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday. But Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity that has supported Shifa’s neonatal intensive care unit, said transferring critically ill infants is complex. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital ... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely,” CEO Melanie Ward said.
The only option is for Israel to stop its assault and allow fuel into the hospital, Ward said.
The Health Ministry said there are 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter.
‘From the river to the sea': Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas war
The president of Doctors Without Borders International, Christos Christou, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” it would take weeks to evacuate the patients.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the X social media platform that Shifa has been without water three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.” Several humanitarian groups told The Associated Press they weren’t able to reach the hospital Sunday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, is “no longer operational” because it was out of fuel with 6,000 people trapped there. Gaza’s sole power plant shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred fuel imports to prevent Hamas from using them.
One woman fleeing northern Gaza, Fedaa Shangan, said she’d had a cesarean section at Al-Quds: “The wound is still fresh.” She said the Israeli army near the hospital “did not care about the presence of patients, children, women and the elderly. They did not care about anyone.”
Alarm was growing. “We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire,” President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told ABC’s “This Week.”
“Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian cease-fire” amid attacks on health care, the U.N. regional directors of the World Health Organization and others said in a statement, adding that more than half of Gaza’s hospitals are closed.
Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment.
About 2.3 million Palestinians remain in the besieged territory.
Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighborhoods, of using civilians as human shields.
EVACUATION WINDOWS, BUT NO PAUSES
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the territory, where conditions are increasingly dire.
But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main roads. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, often killing women and children.
Hospital officials said at least 13 were killed after an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Khan Younis.
The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza’s population.
Wael Abu Omar, spokesperson for Gaza’s border crossings, said 846 people left Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah crossing Sunday. Nearly all were foreigners while a few were patients from Gaza’s hospitals and their caretakers.
He said 76 aid trucks entered Gaza. The U.N. and partners have said much more were needed daily.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on X that he asked European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to apply the same “legal, moral grounds” for EU support of Ukraine to “define its stand on Israel’s war crimes.”
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.
At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. The Israeli military said two more of its soldiers were killed in Gaza, bringing the total to 48 since the ground offensive began.
About 250,000 Israelis have evacuated from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon.
NETANYAHU REJECTS U.S. POSTWAR VISION
Netanyahu has begun to outline Israel’s postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision of the United States.
He said Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward a Palestinian state, long opposed by Netanyahu’s government.
The war threatens to trigger a wider conflict, with Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon trading fire along the border. Attacks by Hezbollah on Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 others, Israel’s military and rescue services said.
Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital and people trapped inside say they cannot flee
Health officials and people trapped inside Gaza's largest hospital rejected Israel's claims that it was helping babies and others evacuate Sunday, saying fighting continued just outside the facility where incubators lay idle with no electricity and critical supplies were running out.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed urgent calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all the nearly 240 hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war.
A day after Netanyahu said Israel was bringing its “full force” with the aim of ending Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling, including around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff.
“They are outside, not far from the gates," said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident sheltering there.
READ: UN agencies' Regional Directors call for immediate action to halt attacks on Gaza hospitals
The hospital's last generator ran out of fuel Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry. It said another 36 babies are at risk of dying.
Israel’s military asserted it placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near Shifa overnight for an emergency generator powering incubators for premature babies and coordinated the delivery with hospital officials. But the military said Hamas prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel.
A Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, disputed the account and also told Al Jazeera the fuel would not be enough to operate the generator an hour. “This is a mockery towards the patients and children,” Al-Qidra said.
Speaking to CNN, Netanyahu asserted that “100 or so” people had been evacuated from Shifa and that Israel had created safe corridors.
But Health Ministry Undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement.
“There are wounded in the house, and we can’t reach them," he told Al Jazeera. “We can’t stick our heads out of the window.”
READ: EU calls for 'immediate pause in hostilities' in Gaza
The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday. But Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity that has supported Shifa's neonatal intensive care unit, said transferring critically ill infants is complex. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital ... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely," CEO Melanie Ward said.
The only option is for Israel to stop its assault and allow fuel into the hospital, Ward said.
The Health Ministry said there are 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter.
The president of Doctors Without Borders International, Christos Christou, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” it would take weeks to evacuate the patients.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the X social media platform that Shifa has been without water three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.” Several humanitarian groups told The Associated Press they weren’t able to reach the hospital Sunday.
READ: Netanyahu rejects growing international calls for a cease-fire in Gaza
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, is “no longer operational” because it was out of fuel with 6,000 people trapped there. Gaza's sole power plant shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred fuel imports to prevent Hamas from using them.
One woman fleeing northern Gaza, Fedaa Shangan, said she'd had a cesarean section at Al-Quds: “The wound is still fresh.” She said the Israeli army near the hospital "did not care about the presence of patients, children, women and the elderly. They did not care about anyone.”
Alarm was growing. “We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire,” President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told ABC’s “This Week.”
“Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian cease-fire" amid attacks on health care, the U.N. regional directors of the World Health Organization and others said in a statement, adding that more than half of Gaza’s hospitals are closed.
Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment.
About 2.3 million Palestinians remain in the besieged territory.
Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighborhoods, of using civilians as human shields.
EVACUATION WINDOWS, BUT NO PAUSES
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the territory, where conditions are increasingly dire.
READ: Morocco debates how to rebuild from September quake that killed thousands
But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main roads. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, often killing women and children.
Hospital officials said at least 13 were killed after an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Khan Younis.
The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza's population.
Wael Abu Omar, spokesperson for Gaza’s border crossings, said 846 people left Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah crossing Sunday. Nearly all were foreigners while a few were patients from Gaza’s hospitals and their caretakers.
He said 76 aid trucks entered Gaza. The U.N. and partners have said much more were needed daily.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on X that he asked European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to apply the same “legal, moral grounds” for EU support of Ukraine to “define its stand on Israel’s war crimes.”
READ: ‘From the river to the sea': Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas 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.
At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began.
About 250,000 Israelis have evacuate d from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon.
NETANYAHU REJECTS U.S. POSTWAR VISION
Netanyahu has begun to outline Israel’s postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision of the United States.
He said Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward a Palestinian state, long opposed by Netanyahu’s government.
The war threatens to trigger a wider conflict, with Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon trading fire along the border. Attacks by Hezbollah on Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 others, Israel’s military and rescue services said.
Netanyahu rejects growing international calls for a cease-fire in Gaza
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel’s battle to crush Gaza’s ruling Hamas militants will continue with “full force.”
A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address.
The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants.
He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israel’s closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood.
For now, Netanyahu said, “the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory.”
Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gaza’s largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting.
In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks.
Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday.
“Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die,” he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were “shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital” and prevented movement between buildings.
Israel’s military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said “we are speaking directly and regularly” with hospital staff.
Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require “a lot of tactical creativity,” without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages.
Six patients died at Shifa after the generator shut down, including the two children, spokesmen with the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
Read: Israel must stop killing babies and women in Gaza: Macron tells BBC
The “unbearably desperate situation” at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that “there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities."
Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing “a state of extreme panic and fear” among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there.
Israel’s military released footage which it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The images showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and destroyed streets empty of anyone but troops.
A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia called in their communique for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a U.N. organ, to open an investigation into Israel’s attacks, saying the war “cannot be called self-defense and cannot be justified under any means.”
Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, which denied it was preventing people in Gaza City from fleeing.
The spokesman of the Hamas military wing said militants were ambushing Israeli troops and vowed that Israel will face a long battle. The Qassam Brigades spokesman, who goes by Abu Obaida, acknowledged in audio aired on Al-Jazeera that the fight is disproportionate “but it is terrifying the strongest force in the region.”
Israel’s military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years.
Following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israel’s allies have defended the country’s right to protect itself. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight.
Read: ‘From the river to the sea': Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas war
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territory’s main north-south artery.
Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, more than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to U.N. monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window, saying civilians could use the central road and a coastal road.
A stream of people fled southward on the main road, some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow.
“Where to go, and what do they want from us?” said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident.
Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israel’s portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as “relatively safe.” They note that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that have also killed women and children.
Demonstrations and outrage continued. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London, the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police.
FEAR GROWS INSIDE SHIFA
“Shelling and explosions never stopped,” said Islam Mattar, one of thousands sheltering at Shifa. “Children here are terrified from the constant sound of explosions.”
The Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there were still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter.
Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it's impossible for everyone to get out.
Read more: Thousands who were sheltering at Gaza City’s hospitals flee as Israel-Hamas war closes in
“We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside," a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization.
CASUALTIES RISE
More than 11,070 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 and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble.
At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. The military on Saturday confirmed the deaths of five reserve soldiers; 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began.
Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive.
About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly.
“Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a possible war," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said after meeting with soldiers stationed along the border.
‘From the river to the sea': Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas war
The Jordan River is a winding, 200-plus-mile run on the eastern flank of Israel and the occupied West Bank. The sea is the glittering Mediterranean to its west.
But a phrase about the space in between, "from the river to the sea," has become a battle cry with new power to roil Jews and pro-Palestinian activists in the aftermath of Hamas' deadly rampage across southern Israel Oct. 7 and Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," pro-Palestinian activists from London to Rome and Washington chanted in the volatile aftermath of Israel's bloodiest day. Adopting or defending it can be costly for public figures, such as U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was censured by the House on Tuesday.
But like so much of the Mideast conflict, what the phrase means depends on who is telling the story — and which audience is hearing it.
Fights in bread lines, despair in shelters: War threatens to unravel Gaza's close-knit society
Many Palestinian activists say it's a call for peace and equality after 75 years of Israeli statehood and decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians. Jews hear a clear demand for Israel's destruction.
This much is clear: Hamas fighters killed at least 1,200 people in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, and 41 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, Israeli officials say. The Foreign Ministry had previously estimated the civilian death toll at 1,400, and gave no reason Friday for the revision.
Hamas also hauled around 240 people back to Gaza as hostages in the worst violence against Jews since the Holocaust.
Thousands who were sheltering at Gaza City’s hospitals flee as Israel-Hamas war closes in
Israel responded with heavy bombardment of Gaza and a ground offensive, that has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The death toll is certain to rise. The result is the deadliest round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in decades.
In the raw afterburn of the Hamas attacks, the chant seems to put everyone on edge.
SLOGAN ADOPTED BY HAMAS
"From the river to the sea" echoes through pro-Palestinian rallies across campuses and cities, adopted by some as a call for a single state on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
By 2012, it was clear that Hamas had claimed the slogan in its drive to claim land spanning Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Civilians flee north Gaza or shelter at a hospital as Israel and Hamas battle in the city
"Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north," Khaled Mashaal, the group's former leader, said that year in a speech in Gaza celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas. "There will be no concession on any inch of the land."
The phrase also has roots in the Hamas charter.
The story behind the phrase is much larger, and reaches across the decades.
In the months before and during the 1948 war, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel. Many expected to return. Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 war. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, and in 2007, Hamas claimed the tiny strip from the Palestinian Authority after a violent coup.
WHAT JEWS SAY THEY HEAR
Even the shorthand, "from the river to the sea," echoes through pro-Palestinian protests, crackles across social media and is available on a variety of merchandise, from sweatshirts to candles.
Ask Jewish people in London what's so chilled them about the current spike in antisemitism, and many will cite what seems like the ubiquity of the slogan. It is a sign, they suggest, that there's much to fear.
"Have no doubt that Hamas is cheering those 'from the river to the sea' chants, because a Palestine between the river to the sea leaves not a single inch for Israel," read an open letter signed by 30 Jewish news outlets around the world and released on Wednesday.
And in the wake of Hamas' killing of civilians on Oct. 7, they're not buying that the chant is merely anti-Israel. Backed by groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, they say it's inherently anti-Jewish.
"No one can now say that in the eyes of Hamas, a hatred of Israel does not mean a hatred of all Jews," said London resident Sarah Nachshen. "The slogans and placards and chants calling for the eradication of Israel and, indeed, all Jews have clearly shown this."
WHAT PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS SAY
Tlaib, D-Mich., who has family in the West Bank and is Congress' only Palestinian-American, posted a video Nov. 3 that featured protesters chanting the slogan.
No stranger to criticism over her rhetoric on the U.S.-Israel relationship, Tlaib defended the slogan.
"From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate," Tlaib tweeted, cautioning that conflating anti-Israel sentiment with antisemitism "silence(s) diverse voices speaking up for human rights."
Tweeted Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program and a senior Fellow at Arab Center Washington: "There isn't a square inch of the land between the river and the sea where Palestinians have freedom, justice and equality, and it has never been more important to emphasize this than right now."
A TWO-STATE SOLUTION
Most of the international community supports a two-state solution, which calls for the partition of the land. To many, though, decades of Israeli settlement expansion have made the reality of a two-state solution impossible.
Right-wing Israelis have blurred the lines between Israel and the West Bank, where half a million people now live in settlements. Many in the Israeli government support the annexation of the West Bank, and official government maps often make no mention of the "green line" boundary between the two.
And the original platform of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party, Likud, published a version of the slogan, saying that between the sea and the Jordan River, "there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
THE RISK OF THE SLOGAN
Using the phrase for public figures can be costly. Tlaib's censure is a punishment one step short of expulsion from the House.
Last month, Vienna police banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration, citing the fact that the phrase "from the river to the sea" was mentioned in invitations and characterizing it as a call to violence.
And in Britain, the Labour party issued a temporary punishment to a member of Parliament, Andy McDonald, for using the phrase during a rally at which he called for a stop to bombardment.
"We won't rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis & Palestinians, between the river & the sea can live in peaceful liberty," he tweeted.
Then he explained: "These words should not be construed in any other way than they were intended, namely as a heart felt plea for an end to killings in Israel, Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, and for all peoples in the region to live in freedom without the threat of violence."