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PremiumHundreds of wounded Palestinian patients, newborns, and their caregivers are stranded inside Gaza's main hospital as war rages between Israel and Hamas. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its fighters. The sounds of explosions and gunfire were heard around Al-Shifa Hospital, which has been encircled by Israeli troops for days. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has said that Shifa “must be protected."
“It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action," Biden said in the Oval Office.
At Shifa Hospital, the Health Ministry 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.
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The United Kingdom has issued sanctions against four Hamas senior leaders and two Hamas financiers, the UK government has said, as per Reuters report
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for Gaza’s Health Ministry, says 40 patients at al-Shifa Hospital have died today.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, al-Qudra said there is still a number of dead bodies inside the complex who need to be buried but added that the Israeli forces are preventing movement inside the compound.
The World Health Organization insisted Tuesday that moving the most vulnerable patients from Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital has become an "impossible task".
The Israeli mission in Geneva had at the weekend slammed the WHO, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for criticising Israel's month-long call for civilians and patients to leave the Palestinian enclave's main hospital.
Al-Shifa Hospital is not being used as a “command" post for fighters as alleged by Israel, a senior Hamas figure says, noting no evidence has been presented to prove it.
Turkey's foreign minister told his Australian counterpart in a call on Tuesday that Israel's targeting of hospitals and schools in Gaza amounted to an "open violation of international law", a Turkish diplomatic source said.
Hakan Fidan also emphasised the urgency of achieving a full ceasefire as soon as possible and the need for unhindered access of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
-Reuters
President Joe Biden on Monday said that Gaza’s largest hospital “must be protected," and called for “less intrusive action" by Israeli forces.
Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants has encircled the sprawling medical facility, prompting thousands to flee.
“It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action," Biden said in the Oval Office.
Shifa hospital has been without electricity and water for three days, and gunfire and bombings outside the compound have made the situation more difficult.
The United Nations says that infrastructure servicing running water and waste management in southern Gaza has ceased to function.
“Due to lack of fuel, public sewage pumping stations, 60 water wells in the south, the two main desalination plants in Rafah and the Middle Area, the two main sewage pumps in the south, and the Rafah wastewater treatment plant have all ceased operations," the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported, citing the organisation’s Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
“Coupled with the shutdown of municipal sanitation work, this is posing a serious threat to public health, increasing the risk of water contamination and the outbreak of diseases."
A spokesman for the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday there was no objection to having babies evacuated from Al Shifa Hospital but there was no mechanism for an evacuation to take place, reports Reuters.
"We have no objection to have the babies moved to any hospital, in Egypt, the West Bank or even to the occupation hospitals. What we care most is about the wellbeing and the lives of those babies," Ashraf Al-Qidra said, speaking by telephone from the hospital.
Notably this remark comes after reports emerged of Israeli dfense forces surrounding Al-Shifa hospital offering incubators for baby tranfer emerged.
Israel’s 2024 budget will be structured to focus on the war with Hamas and then economic growth thereafter, with concessions necessary to expand the country’s unity government, a senior minister said.
“One of the biggest challenges we have is expanding unity government, throughout the war and after the war," Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy and industry minister, said Monday during a Bloomberg Radio interview in New York.
“In 2024, we are really structuring the budget to focus on the war and to focus on economic growth immediately after. We will make the concessions needed so that everyone is happy," Barkat said.
Israel’s finance ministry is set to unveil a new budget in the coming days amid the conflict with Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US, that is more expensive than initially predicted.
-Bloomberg
Al Jazeera correspondent reports that Israeli tanks surrounded more than 100 patients and medical staff at Al Helou International Hospital in Gaza City.
Its administrative director called for Israeli forces to provide a safe route for emergency evacuation.
“The situation is difficult in the hospital and we used rainwater for sterilisation," he said. “There is no fuel or water in the hospital, which has now turned into a maternity hospital only."
Dozens killed and wounded as Israel targets Khan Younis with a flurry of strikes – despite ordering civilians in northern Gaza to flee to the southern “safe zone."
Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza since November 5, the UN humanitarian office said on 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.
-PTI
A circulating image on social media revealed troops of the IDF's Golani Brigade inside Gaza's parliament building in Gaza City after its capture. The Palestinian Legislative Council building, which has been under Hamas's control since 2007, saw Israeli forces gain control, The Times of Israel reported.
Israeli forces bombarded southern Gaza on Tuesday after tanks advanced to the gates of the enclave's biggest hospital in the north where health officials say dozens of patients, including babies, have died due a lack of power and the heavy fighting.
At least 13 people were killed when Israeli forces targeted their homes in the southern city of Khan Younis, Gaza health ministry officials said. The military has also positioned tanks outside Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza City's main medical centre, which Israel says sits atop tunnels housing a headquarters for Hamas fighters who are using patients as shields.
-Reuters
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has earlier said on X that he supports “voluntary migration" of Palestinians in Gaza as the “right humanitarian solution."
Referring to his comments, Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, said the far-right minister “revealed the real policy and intentions of the Israeli government".
“Netanyahu himself said in the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza that all Gazans must evict their homes. Ethnic cleansing is a war crime and it is done by bombarding an unprotected civilian population."
China, Iran and a multitude of Arab nations condemned an Israeli minister’s statement that a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was an option in the Israel-Hamas war, calling it a threat to the world.
China’s deputy UN ambassador Geng Shuang said Beijing was “shocked," calling the statements “extremely irresponsible and disturbing" and should be universally condemned.
Tanks were massed near the gates of Gaza's main hospital where Palestinians were trapped in dire conditions on Tuesday as US President Joe Biden pressed Israel to protect the complex.
After days of heavy air strikes around Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, witnesses said tanks and armoured vehicles were metres (yards) from the besieged facility, which has become a focal point of the five-week-old war.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it was coordinating the transfer of incubators into the Gaza Strip, in a possible measure to enable the evacuation of newborn babies from the Palestinian enclave's biggest hospital.
As war rages in Gaza, two main hospitals-- the Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals -- have been forced to stop operations.
Israel's defence minister said that Hamas had lost control in the Gaza Strip as the Israel Defence Forces moved to fully capture Gaza City.
The Times of Israel report mentioned that the Israeli forces are advancing towards every location and the terrorists are fleeing south.
According to a report by Al Jazeera, the Gaza health ministry has said that all hospitals could shut down in the next 48 hours due to fuel shortages.
Already, Al-Shifa and A-Quds hospitals have been shut due to a lack of fuel.
The healthcare system in Gaza is in a dire situation and the Israeli military has encircled Al-Shifa hospital to annihilate Hamas militants.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says a race to find survivors under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza has been thwarted by insufficient access for rescuers, as Israel’s military campaign in the enclave continues.
While access to bombed-out areas is difficult, even the paramedics who can get through have no access to heavy machinery like bulldozers that could help clear ground to access any possible survivors under the rubble.
Israel has allowed scores of aid trucks -- carrying food, water, and medical supplies but no fuel -- to enter Gaza as the military campaign goes on. United Nations and other officials say that’s a trickle compared to the hundreds of trucks that entered Gaza daily before the conflict.
“Hamas uses hospitals as an instrument of war," Israel army’s chief spokesman said, standing in a room of the Rantisi Children’s Hospital decorated with a colorful children’s drawing of a tree, with explosive vests, grenades and RPGs displayed on the floor.
He showed another area that he said could 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. He said forensic experts were examining the scenes.
Sitting in a tent next to Nasr Hospital in southern Gaza, 10 members of the al-Tarabish family survive on what little they have: Pieces of days-old flatbread and dried herbs kept in a plastic sandwich bag.
Nermin Abu al-Tarabish says she feels lucky to be alive, having escaped heavy bombardment around Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
“Some were cut to pieces, some fell to the ground, some were screaming and making noises, and I was running while the people were running," she said.
“It was a tragic day," she said. “I had never experienced anything like this day in my life."
As night fell, ambulance vans pulled up to the hospital in Khan Younis, unloading wounded from Israel's relentless bombardment surrounded by distraught relatives — many looking stunned as medics ran to receive the new patients.
Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, is on the verge of collapse as war rages between Israel and Hamas. The fuel reserves have dried in the hospital, leaving the facility unable to function.
The director of the hospital told the media that premature babies were being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive.
A UN aid agency said that at least 102 UN staff members have been killed in Gaza since the war began on 7th October.
"This is the highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said.
At least 27 staff members have also been injured since the start of the war, the UN agency added.
Israel’s 2024 budget will be structured to focus on the war and then economic growth thereafter, a senior minister said. “In 2024, we are really structuring the budget to focus on the war and to focus on economic growth immediately after. We will make the concessions needed so that everyone is happy," he added.
Palestinian telecommunication minister said that the Gaza Strip is facing imminent communications and internet services outage by Thursday. The expected interruption is due to the depletion of fuel supplies.
Israel has accused the Hamas militancy group of using hospitals as cover for its personnel.
International law gives hospitals special protections during the 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.
Yesterday, the Red Cross attempted evacuation of some 6,000 patients, staff, and displaced people from another hospital, Al-Quds, after it shut down for lack of fuel, but the Red Cross said its convoy had to turn back because of shelling and fighting. On Monday, 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.
At Shifa Hospital, the Health Ministry said 36 babies, as well as other patients, are at risk of dying because life-saving equipment cannot function.
As attacks near Gaza's main hospital Al-Shifa escalate, US President Joe Biden said that Shifa “must be protected."
“It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action," Biden added.
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