Occupied Al-Quds: Israel continued its bombardment Gaza on consecutive 37th day, while tanks are targeting the hospitals.
Israel lost its cool as it is targeting the patients coming into and leaving out of the hospitals by using Snipers.
As many as 268 more Palestinians have been martyred in the atrocities of the Israeli forces. Israeli raids in the northern West Bank have killed three Palestinians, according to authorities, as violence in the occupied territory escalates amid the war in Gaza.
Israeli forces killed one Palestinian in the town of Jenin and two others in the town of Arraba, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
During the incursion, the Israeli army damaged infrastructure, including roads and power transformers, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The deadly raid adds to hundreds of Palestinian casualties in the West Bank since the beginning of the Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Israeli forces have killed at least 185 Palestinians and injured 2,500 in the West Bank in little more than a month, according to Palestinian authorities.
Israeli forces are also tightening movement restrictions and carrying out mass arrests of Palestinians in the area.
A journalist said that Israeli raids have escalated significantly in the occupied West Bank in the past week. “The raids have gotten to up to about 40 per day,” journalist said. “That’s a huge increase from where they were earlier in the year, throughout 2023, when they had become an almost daily occurrence.”
Settlers have killed at least eight Palestinians and forced hundreds out of their homes since October 7, according to Palestinian officials.
“Now [the settlers] are a bit more emboldened by the fact that there’s a war [going on],” Adam Bouloukos, director of the United Nations Relief and Works “And their violence is much more considerable and much more lethal.”
Israel has promised to eliminate Hamas in response to its October 7 attacks in the south, which killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.
Since then, Israel has carried out a relentless bombing campaign in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, killing at least 11,078 people, including more than 4,500 children, according to Palestinian officials.
The WHO says it has lost communication with its contacts inside al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza.
Several hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza have been “directly hit” as Israel intensifies attacks around hospitals, the UN says. There are fears for hundreds of patients, including 37 premature babies in al-Shifa Hospital, as electricity fails in multiple hospitals.
However, testimonies from inside the hospital say that leaving the medical facility is not safe despite the Israeli army’s announcement. In separate messages, Ahmad Mokhallalati, a surgeon inside al-Shifa, and Mustafa Sarsour, the only remaining journalist inside the hospital, they witnessed civilians trying to exit the building being shot at.
A residential building in the eastern part of Khan Younis has been targeted and destroyed.
So far, three people have reportedly been killed right at the spot. One person—it was very graphic to see—his body was in pieces in a plastic bag and directly taken to the morgue.
This attack took place after a couple of hours of relative calm in the area. But in the early hours of this morning and the late hours of last night, Rafah, Khan Younis and the central part of Gaza have been targeted repeatedly with multiple airstrikes and heavy bombardment.
Palestinians sheltering inside Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital are pleading for help from the international community as tanks surround the hospital. The hospital’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said premature babies are in a “precarious situation” and any person moving within the hospital compound is being attacked by Israeli snipers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it has lost communication with its contacts inside al-Shifa Hospital.
Other hospitals are also under attack.
Two doctors have been killed and several displaced individuals have been injured, following Israeli army bombing in the the vicinity of Mahdi Maternity Hospital in the Nasr neighbourhood.
The UN Development Programme office in Gaza was shelled last night, Achim Steiner, the head of the UNDP, has said and added that there were reports of deaths and injuries.
Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah has touted the use of new weapons against Israel and promised that the front against its enemy will remain “active”.
Israeli forces have killed another Palestinian in the West Bank, moving the death toll in the occupied territory since October 7 up to 186, the Health Ministry has said.
In a statement, the ministry said: “Montaser Muhammad Amin Saif, 34, was shot Sunday by the Israeli occupation forces in the village of Burqa north of Nablus.”
The Israeli forces stormed the town of Burqa and searched several homes, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Overnight, Israeli forces arrested at least 21 Palestinians in raids in Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, and Tulkarm provinces, WAFA reported, citing Palestinian security and local sources.
The situation inside the al-Shifa Hospital is getting worse, and no one there feels safe, a surgeon at the hospital.
“We can hardly treat the patients within the hospital and are in the middle of the war-zone. There are continuous airstrikes, and the drones are hovering within the hospital area,” Dr Ahmad Mokhallalati said.
“Day before yesterday at about 2 in the morning, the electricity stopped because of some issues. The engineer who went to try to fix that was shot by a drone and injured in his neck. Four of his limbs are paralysed,” he added.
Dr Mokhallalati said that the Israeli army’s announcement that people can use the exit on the eastern side of the hospital complex to leave “is one big lie.”
“I saw a family of five in front of my eyes who tried to move from the east yesterday and they were shot. So they came back injured,” he said.
Nine civilians were killed and many have been injured after Israeli army air attacks targeted the home of al-Askari family in the Tal al-Zaatar area in northern Gaza.
An Israeli air strike hit the UNDP premises in Gaza City’s Nasr neighbourhood, where hundreds of people had been sheltering, causing more casualties.
Two doctors have been killed and several displaced individuals have been injured, following Israeli army bombing in the the vicinity of Mahdi Maternity Hospital in the Nasr neighbourhood.
Numerous people have been killed when an Israeli airstrike targeted the Rantisi family home in Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah, as well as the Abu Abda family in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Two premature babies have died at al-Shifa Hospital due to a lack of electricity.
A child was killed and several were injured after Israeli war planes bombed the Abu Shab family home in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis.
Israeli forces targeted a residential building belonging to the Farra family in the Sheikh Nasser area, east of Khan Younis, completely destroying the building after it was evacuated earlier.
The Israeli army says over the past day its forces started fighting in the Shati refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City.
The Israeli military said it killed many Hamas fighters and discovered infrastructure belonging to the group.
The humanitarian pauses announced by the Israeli army are only on Salah al-Din Street, not on the streets leading to it, Mohammed R Mhawish, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza said.
“Within the city, the fighting is ongoing, and all the roads in the city are destroyed,” he said, adding that there’s no way to get to Salah al-Din from downtown Gaza City.
Al-Shifa Hospital is still under military siege as Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have closed in on the health facility from all sides – from the north, east and southern parts – just about a couple of hundred metres away. They are targeting the hospital repeatedly and attack drones are hovering at a low altitude over the area.
We heard the director of the hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, talk about possible coordination with ambulances and the Red Cross to evacuate patients and the babies in incubators.
But it is impossible to move the babies anywhere since most hospitals in northern Gaza are under heavy targets, have lost electricity and are also low on supplies to treat patients properly. There is also no electricity to keep the incubators running.
So he [Salmiya] is talking about looking for a safe corridor to evacuate those babies.
An official of the Jordanian armed forces says a Royal Air Force plane on Saturday dropped urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza for the second time using parachutes, Jordan News Agency has reported.
The operation was conducted in cooperation with the UAE and Qatar to help the hospital’s capabilities, the report said.
The armed forces said the hospital continues to operate under difficult conditions due to relentless Israeli bombing for the past month.
The World Health Organization has called for a humanitarian ceasefire.
“WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the UN health agency, said on X.
“WHO again calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering. WHO also calls for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients.”
The UN Development Programme office in Gaza was shelled last night, Achim Steiner, the head of the UNDP, has said in a post on X.
Steiner said there were reports of deaths and injuries “among those who sought safety in our compound”.
“This is wrong on every count,” he added. “Civilians, civilian infrastructure & the inviolability of UN facilities must be always protected.”
I
As the Israeli army surrounds multiple hospitals in northern Gaza, the UN has issued a reminder that “hospitals are explicitly entitled to specific protection under international humanitarian law”.
Staff at al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, have described dire conditions for patients, including newborn babies who do not have access to working incubators due to power outages.
Despite Israel’s denials that the hospital is being attacked, hospital officials say the complex is surrounded by Israeli forces and has been struck by shelling and sniper fire.
Dr Mads Gilbert, who worked at the hospital and is in contact with his former colleagues there, spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about the situation at the facility.
The “collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north of Gaza” is delaying the Ministry of Health in Gaza from updating the latest numbers of people injured and killed, the UN has reported.
The proposal for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict envisions two distinct states for the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.
The UN has said that several hospitals have been “directly hit” as Israel intensified its shelling and ground attacks around hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza.
The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian Territories also notes:
Power at the Al-Shifa and the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza was reportedly cut off after fuel for generators ran out. Generators at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City failed and could not be repaired due to the bombardment and fighting.
Tens of thousands of people evacuated towards southern Gaza on Saturday, while hundreds of thousands of people who remain in the north are struggling to get the essentials they need to survive.
People are drinking water from “unsafe sources” which “raises serious concerns about dehydration and waterborne diseases”.
The WHO has said that there are reports that some people who fled Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital “have been shot at, wounded and even killed”, in a post on X.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that “infants at Al-Quds Hospital are facing dehydration due to a shortage of breast milk alternatives”.
According to MSF Canada, there more than 600 patients needing medical care trapped in the besieged hospital.
The hospital’s director has said that this includes 37 premature babies who are struggling to survive after the hospital was forced to abandon its neonatal intensive care unit.
Tense and difficult negotiations continue at the UN Security Council in an effort to break the deadlock in the world’s most powerful decision-making authority – as death and despair rain down on Gaza.
Malta’s ambassador to the UN, Vanessa Frazier, has circulated a new resolution among the Council members for consideration and a potential vote, hoping to finally pass a resolution on the war on Gaza after serial failed efforts over the past month.
An Arab-Islamic summit hosted by Saudi Arabia called for an end to the war in Gaza and rejected justifying Israel’s actions against Palestinians as self-defence.
