Israel war live updates: IDF raids Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza in targeted operation
The Israeli army says it’s carrying out a “precise and targeted operation” in Gaza’s largest hospital, targeting a suspected Hamas command centre. Warning: Graphic
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Israel Defense Forces soldiers have moved in on the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza citing “operational necessity” but promising medical, patients and civilians would not be harmed.
Gaza health ministry has reported Israeli forces have raided the western side of the medical complex, as well as searching the basement.
“There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital,” director-general Dr Munir al-Bursh told Al Jazerra.
Ashraf al-Qidra, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson, also told the outlet: “The occupation army is now in the basement, and searching the basement. They are inside the complex, shooting and carrying out bombings”.
Gaza’s besieged main hospital had come to international attention with patients including new born babies dying as a result of being cut off from power, food and water.
Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya said 179 bodies had been interred so far, including seven babies and 29 intensive care patients who died after fuel for the hospital generators ran out.
Up to 2300 doctors, patients and displaced civilians remain stranded in horrific conditions within the sprawling complex.
“There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the morgues,” Dr Abu Salmiya said. The United Nations has supported his claim about the conditions.
“In the name of humanity, the secretary-general (Antonio Guterres) calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” his spokesman said.
Israel has been under intense international pressure, notably from the US, to halt hostilities on and around the hospital and allow civilians to escape.
Hamas has claimed it had no fighters in the hospital and hoped the IDF operation would “dispel the lie” armed combatants were there.
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HAMAS DENIES HOSPITAL ‘COMMAND CENTRE’ CLAIMS
Hamas said the statements made by the US has “given a green light to the Israeli occupation to commit further brutal massacres targeting hospitals, with the goal of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system and displacing Palestinians”.
“We renew our call to the United Nations to form an international committee to roam and check all the hospitals to find out the lie that is the narrative of the occupation and its ally, Washington,” they said.
Director of Jewish Voices for Peace Alice Rothchild noted the US has not provided evidence that Hamas has an operating centre under the hospital.
“I can only guess that the evidence is not there, or they’re just relying on Israeli sources and Israeli sources have a long history of not being very accurate,” Ms Rothchild said in reference to a lack of evidence.
“I can only surmise that the US government is looking at this humanitarian catastrophe, multiple war crimes, etc, etc and wanting to sort of save themselves from being part of it by making these statements that are too little too late.”
More than 11,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, with the death toll expected to be much higher with people missing under the rubble. In Israel, the official death toll from Hamas’ attacks stands at 1200.
UN AGENCY SAYS AID OPERATION ‘COMING TO AN END’
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has said its Gaza fuel depot is empty and with fuel still not allowed in, their aid operation “is gradually coming to an end.”
The UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said no fuel had entered Gaza since October 7.
“Since then, we have heavily rationed the use of fuel and accessed pre-existing, limited amounts stored in a depot inside the Gaza Strip, through close coordination with Israeli authorities,” Mr Lazzarini said. “The depot is now empty.”
“It is very simple. Without fuel, the humanitarian operation in Gaza is coming to an end. Many more people will suffer and will likely die.
“It is unbelievable that humanitarian agencies have to beg for fuel and operate on life support … I appeal to all parties to make fuel available now and stop using humanitarian assistance for political or military gains.”
DESPERATION AS DOCTORS STRUGGLE TO KEEP PATIENTS ALIVE
Doctors inside Al-Shifa hospital have reported an increased Israeli attack around the hospital over the past few hours and said that the medical complex has been encircled and that there has been heavy shelling and gunfire.
Medical staff are desperately trying to keep babies, children and adults in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) warm as they manually pump oxygen for children in an attempt to keep them alive.
At least 40 patients, including six premature babies, have died at Al-Shifa hospital in the last three days, according to Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra.
A doctor walking through the hospital’s ICU said that the department had been relentlessly hit by Israeli forces.In one room, he points to the debris on the ground and overturned equipment as evidence of the attack, saying that it had destroyed the unit’s ventilation and air conditioning units.
“The medical crews had to move patients to avoid them being targeted by Israeli snipers and Israeli bombing,” the unnamed doctor said.
“Even the patients who are about to die, the Israelis are trying to kill inside this hospital. The complex is completely surrounded, no one can move.”
EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS ARE WORKING TO SAVE DOZENS OF BABIES
Egyptian officials are working to bring 36 newborn babies from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza to Egypt.
Egyptian Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said that the health ministry is trying to coordinate the transfer with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
“We’ve been asked to receive 36 newly-born neonates in incubators,” Mr Abdel Ghaffar said, adding that he is working with his team and other officials to get them into Egypt “as soon as possible.”
“I have 36 ambulances equipped with portable ventilators waiting on the border to receive those kids … (and) get them immediately to our hospitals,” he said.
The health minister said the transfer itself would be dangerous and having movable incubators ready in the ambulances is critical. He said was told by the PRCS that it was attempting to put three babies in one incubator “because they don’t have that much source of energy to support.”
ISRAEL CAPTURES GAZA PARLIAMENT
Israel said it captured Gaza’s parliament building and other government institutions used by Hamas to train, prepare and launch its October 7 terrorist attack.
As its forces deepened their offensive in the Palestinian territory, Israeli military units “took over the Hamas parliament, the government building, the Hamas police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons,” the army said in a statement.
The statement said “government institutions of the terrorist organisation Hamas” had been used for “military purposes” including “for training in preparation for the attack on Israel” on October 7.
Hamas dismissed the Israeli army’s announcement that it had taken over institutions. The move was a “pathetic attempt to manufacture victory and imaginary control of empty places or those previously targeted and destroyed,” Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement
US, BRITAIN SANCTION HAMAS
The United States and Britain on Tuesday announced another round of sanctions on Hamas over last month’s attack on Israel, again targeting the group’s Iranian backers.
The measures target “key Hamas officials and the mechanisms by which Iran provides support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” another militant group operating in the Gaza Strip, the US Treasury Department said.
ISRAEL, HAMAS NEAR HOSTAGE DEAL
A high-ranking Israeli official has said Israel and Hamas are close to a hostage deal that would free most of the Israeli women and children who were kidnapped on October 7.
“The general outline of the deal is understood,” the anonymous Israeli official told The Washington Post. He said the deal could be announced within days.
The deal would see Israeli women and children being held hostage by Hamas released in groups, with Palestinian women and young people in Israeli jails released simultaneously.
The terrorist group has indicated it is “ready to release 70 women and children”.
US President Joe Biden expressed “personal appreciation” to the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who acted as mediator between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has indicated that the release of the women and children hostages would be a “first step” toward freedom for all the hostages.
The Israeli official said that a total of 240 to 250 hostages are being held, with most of them Israeli citizens.
179 PEOPLE BURIED IN MASS GRAVE IN GAZA HOSPITAL
The director of Gaza’s biggest hospital said that 179 people, including babies and patients who died in the intensive care unit, had been buried in a “mass grave” at the complex.
“We were forced to bury them in a mass grave,” said Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiyah, adding that seven babies and 29 intensive care patients were among those buried after hospital fuel supplies ran out.
“There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the morgues,” he said, as no fuel has entered the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.
On Tuesday, a man and a woman died in the ICU bringing the number of people who had died in the unit to 29, Salmiyah said.
A journalist inside the hospital who is collaborating with AFP said the stench of decomposing bodies was everywhere in the facility.
But he said nighttime fighting and air strikes from Monday into Tuesday had been less intense than previous nights.
HAMAS CLAIMS HOSTAGE KILLED IN ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE
An earlier unconfirmed video from Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed to show an Israeli female hostage killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to CNN.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the woman’s family is aware of the video’s existence after an army representative had visited the family to inform them.
“Hamas continues to use psychological terror and acts inhumanely, through videos and photos of the hostages, as it has done in the past,” the IDF statement said.
According to CNN, the video shared on social media appeared to show the woman talking into the camera as she read a short statement, where she revealed she was 19 years old and gave details of her hometown, ID and parents.
The video then showed an image of what appeared to be the woman’s body, killed in an airstrike.
The video was not verified until today when IDF announced the death of Cpl. Noa Marciano, 19, of the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps 414th. She had been held hostage since the Hamas attack on October 7.
GAZA ON BRINK ON COMMUNICATIONS BLACKOUT
Palestinian telecommunications minister Ishaq Sidr said the Gaza Strip is facing an “imminent, complete halt of communications and internet services by Thursday”.
Sidr noted the blackout was due to the lack of fuel supplies and that it would impede the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
“Any interruption may cause the inability to direct [humanitarian] crews to distress sites, which means the loss of many lives, and deliberately depriving our people in Gaza of their right to communicate, especially in light of the displacement and continuous bombing,” Sidr said.
He said it was a “violation of international law and basic human rights.”
AUSTRALIANS SPLIT ON CONFLICT
In Australia, a Roy Morgan snap poll taken on the weekend found 51 per cent of Australians say Israeli soldiers should withdraw from Gaza, while 49 per cent say they should not.
Of the 1650 respondents who supported withdrawal, the disproportionate impact on Palestinian civilians being killed and maimed and emerging humanitarian crisis was cited. The no side said Israel would not be safe if Hamas was not defeated.
“There is a clear gender split on the question with a large majority of women (64 per cent) saying Israel should withdraw their armed forces immediately from Gaza compared to only 41 per cent of men,” the poll concluded.
A majority of respondents in NSW and Victoria supported withdrawal, WA and South Australia said no and Queensland was split.
IDF CLAIMS HOSTAGES HIDDEN IN CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) claims it has evidence some of the 240 hostages being held by Hamas have been hidden in a children’s hospital in Gaza as troops surround another medical facility in the embattled enclave.
The IDF said it had found “signs” that hostages might have been at Al-Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza City, including a makeshift kitchen and toilet and a motorbike with bullet holes suspected of having been used to transport the hostages.
Soldiers had also identified what might have been a Hamas “command centre” with an armoury of weapons including grenades, suicide vests and other explosives stored in the hospital’s basement.
According to a United Nations official, about 650 patients, 500 healthcare workers and an estimated 2500 displaced people remain in the compound with no safe passage yet agreed.
Hamas has claimed allegations it has been using hospitals as “false and misleading propaganda.”
“We have never used civilians as human shields because it goes against our religion, morality and principles,” spokesman Ghazi Hamad said.
With AFP
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