Israel offers Gaza hospital evacuation for babies amid conflict

JERUSALEM/GAZA:

Israel’s military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza’s biggest hospital on Sunday, but Palestinian officials said people inside were still trapped, with two newborns dead and dozens at risk of power outages amid heavy fighting nearby.

Al-Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s war to eliminate Hamas and free hostages held by the group, were barely able to care for patients. More people are injured every day by heavy Israeli shelling.

Speaking from inside the largest hospital, Al-Shifa, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Reuters Israeli fire did not directly hit it overnight, but “terrorized medical officials and civilians.”

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Vice Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Saturday that Israel’s military would help remove the babies from the hospital at the request of staff there. Al-Qidra had said there were 45 babies in total and two had already died.

Asked about the evacuations, Al-Qidra said: “We have not been informed of any mechanism to move the babies to a safer hospital. So far we are praying for their safety and that more of them are not lost.”

At the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Mosab Subeih, a baby boy, was rushed in from a house hit by an Israeli rocket.

“He has an immediate head injury and he’s bleeding and we don’t have surgery,” said one of the doctors, who treated him with a manual ventilator as the power went out.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said medical staff at another hospital in northern Gaza, Al-Quds, were struggling to care for those there with little medicine, food and water.

“Al Quds hospital has been cut off from the world for the last 6-7 days. There is no way in, no way out,” said Tommaso Della Longa, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Reuters.

Shifa was also inaccessible to the recently wounded, said Mohammad Qandil, a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, who is in contact with colleagues there.

“Sifa hospital is now not working, no one is allowed in, no one is allowed to go out and if you are wounded or injured in the Gaza Strip, you cannot be taken by our ambulance to Sifa hospital, so Sifa hospital is now out service,” he said Reuters.

On Sunday, Israel said people could be safely evacuated from three hospitals in northern Gaza, including Shifa through one of its exits. Hospital director Mohammad Abu Selmeyah told Al Arabiya TV that there was no safe exit.

Pass to open

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians wait on the desert road (Cairo – Ismailia) on their way to the Rafah border crossing to enter Gaza, in Cairo, Egypt November 12, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

As the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsened, 80 foreigners and several wounded Palestinians crossed into Egypt in the first evacuations since Friday, four Egyptian security sources said. Poland said 18 of them were Polish citizens.

Very little aid has flowed into Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

Palestinian officials said Friday that 11,078 Gazans have been killed by airstrikes and artillery since then, about 40 percent of them children.

The disease is spreading amid evacuees who pile into schools and other shelters and survive on small amounts of food and water, international aid agencies say.

Also read: ‘An hour here, an hour there’, Israel says open to Gaza, aid pauses, hostages

Some countries have undertaken the provision of parachute assistance. Jordan said she airdropped a second batch to a field hospital early Sunday.

Hamas said it had completely or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 27 tanks and vehicles in the past 48 hours. An Israeli military spokesman said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza.

At a press conference late Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the death of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began.

Israel renews evacuation calls

Israeli military vehicles take up position in the Gaza Strip, November 12, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

Residents said there was increased fighting around the Al-Shati refugee camp, next to the coast in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it had killed several militants there and called on civilians to take a four-hour pause to evacuate the south.

Speaking from inside Gaza City, Jamila, 54, said she and her family could hear the roar of tanks operating in streets 700 meters away.

“During the day, people are trying to look for basic necessities like bread and water, and at night people are trying to stay alive,” he said by phone.

“We hear explosions throughout the night, sometimes we can tell that some of these explosions are exchanges of fire between the resistance fighters and the Israeli forces.”

The mother of six said her family was afraid to leave.

“We hear a lot of shelling in the south and there is no food. Things there don’t look any different from our situation here,” he said.

Palestinian health officials said 13 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Khan Younis on Sunday.

Reports of possible hostage deal

Smoke rises as displaced Palestinians take shelter at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City November 8, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of displaced people who have taken refuge in hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can destroy what it says are Hamas command centers below and around them. Hamas denies using the hospitals in this way.

Al Shifa staff said Reuters there was continuous shelling for more than 24 hours. Most of the hospital staff and people housed there had left, but 500 patients remained.

Read: Israel bombed Al-Shifa Hospital ICU. injuries were reported

The World Health Organization expressed “serious concern” for the safety of all those trapped there by the fighting and said it had lost contact with hospital contacts.

Israel’s three major television news channels said on Saturday that there had been some progress toward a deal to release hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, but there was no sign of one on Sunday. They did not cite named sources and there has been no public comment from Hamas or Israel on the reports.