Israel war live updates: ‘Dire’: Thousands trapped in shut-down Gaza hospital
As many as 3,000 patients and staff are sheltering inside Gaza’s largest hospital without adequate fuel, water or food, as war rages outside. Follow updates. Warning: Graphic
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Israel has offered Palestinian hospitals 300 litres of fuel — enough for 30 minutes of operations — but has vowed to maintain its blockade of Gaza as it intensifies its assault on Hamas terrorists.
Three hospitals had been forced to close with no power or medicines, prompting the limited offer, as the international community plans emergency aid through air drops to help trapped Palestinian civilians in the besieged enclave.
Israel has said it would not allow further assistance as it suspected Hamas was using civilians and hospitals as human shields and gifted fuel and medicines for their own war effort.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed the largest hospital in Gaza, the al-Shifa complex, has shut its doors despite further bombings seeing civilian casualties being brought to their gates.
The facility has said it could barely treat the patients it had as its limited power was hampering treatments; three newborn babies reportedly have died in recent days.
AFP has reported that hundreds of patients were trapped and thousands of people sought shelter around the hospital as Israeli troops and Hamas fighters battled near the compound.
WHO and other UN agencies said as many as 3,000 patients and staff are sheltering inside without adequate fuel, water or food.
“Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore,” said WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, after making contact with on-the-ground staff. “It’s been three days without electricity, without water,” he said, describing the situation inside as “dire and perilous.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said three nurses at Al-Shifa hospital had been killed.
“Bombardments and armed clashes around the Shifa hospital in Gaza city intensified since the afternoon of 11 November, the UN office said.
“Critical infrastructure, including the oxygen station, water tanks and a well, the cardiovascular facility, and the maternity ward, was damaged and three nurses killed.”
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SHOTS FIRED AT JEWISH SCHOOL
A Jewish school in Montreal has been fired on for the second time in a week as tensions remain high in Canada over the Israel-Hamas war, police said.
Police spokeswoman Veronique Dubuc said no one was in Yeshiva Gedola when shots were heard around 5am local time and there were no reported injuries.
Officers discovered bullet damage to the building’s facade and found cartridges on the ground, Dubuc said.
The incident took place only two days after that school and another Jewish school in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city, were fired upon, also without casualties.
“The fact that people took the liberty to attack the same target more than once demonstrates the situation’s seriousness,” school spokesman Lionel Perez said during a press conference, adding that classes would continue as usual.
US STRIKES TWO LOCATIONS IN SYRIA
The United States carried out strikes against two Iran-linked sites in Syria on Sunday in response to attacks on American forces, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
It is the third time in less than three weeks that the US military has targeted locations in Syria it said were tied to Iran, which supports various armed groups that Washington blames for a spike in attacks on its forces in the Middle East.
“US military forces conducted precision strikes today on facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran-affiliated groups in response to continued attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria,” General Austin said in a statement.
“The strikes were conducted against a training facility and a safe house near the cities of Albu Kamal and Mayadeen, respectively,” he said.
JEWISH LEADERS SLAM PENNY WONG
Australia’s leading Jewish organisations have condemned Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s call for a ceasefire in the Middle East, warning there can be no resolution while Hamas retains control of Gaza.
Senator Wong on Sunday called on Israel to abide by international law and stop “the attacking of hospitals”.
Senator Wong’s comments on the ABC’s Insiders program triggered a backlash from the Jewish community, with the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein saying that “ceasefire equals surrender”.
The Zionist Federation of Australia and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry urged the Albanese government not to lend credibility to political narratives that sought to “demonise the state of Israel”.
‘DIRE AND PERILOUS’: AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL CRISIS
The World Health Organisation has joined calls from other humanitarian groups including Medecins Sans Frontieres for an end to attacks against healthcare facilities.
Thousands of Palestinians, including critically injured ones, are sheltering at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital as the Israeli military surrounds the facility.
In a statement, WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus called the situation “dire and perilous”.
“It’s been three days without electricity, without water and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care,” he said.
“The constant gunfire and bombings in the area have exacerbated the already critical circumstances.
“Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly. Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore. The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair.”
CHILLING THREAT SENT TO AUSTRALIA’S PEAK JEWISH BODY
The image of an Islamic State terrorist about to behead a hostage in Syria was sent to Australia’s peak Jewish body with the words, “We are coming for you soon, from western Sydney”, The Australian reports.
NSW Police investigated the incident and a 33-year-old man from the southern Sydney suburb of Wolli Creek was arrested on November 1.
The nation’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, received the image via direct message on Instagram on October 12, less than a week after the Hamas attacks on October 7.
The shocking incident is just one of a nationwide surge in death threats, abuse on the streets and incitement to violence against Jewish Australians that increased over the weekend, The Australian reports.
In Melbourne’s Caulfield, two young Jewish men were assaulted by a group of men of Middle Eastern appearance after protests and in the NSW city of Newcastle, the home of a Jewish Rabbi was defaced with graffiti.
ISRAEL OPENS HOSPITAL EVACUATION ROUTES
Patients trapped in Gaza hospitals while fighting rages around them have been offered a lifeline, after the Israel Defense Forces announced an evacuation corridor was being opened for patients.
Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital has been caught in Israel’s ground offensive aimed at destroying Hamas, and the compound has been repeatedly hit by gunfire and strikes, one of which Hamas health officials said destroyed the cardiac ward on Sunday.
Following the repeated calls by the IDF to Gazan residents to evacuate from northern Gaza for their own safety, the IDF is enabling a passage from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals >> pic.twitter.com/5c07P97Ch5
— דובר צה״ל ×“× ×™×ל הגרי - Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) November 12, 2023
Fears have intensified for patients and people taking refuge in Al-Shifa and other healthcare facilities in Gaza, and medical aid group Doctors Without Borders has warned that without a ceasefire or evacuation a hospital “will become a morgue”.
GAZA PATIENTS ‘IN STREETS WITHOUT CARE’
Patients are out “in the streets without care” after “forced evacuations” of two pediatric hospitals in Gaza, an official in the Hamas-held territory said, countering the Israeli army which said it secured safe passage for civilians.
“We have completely lost contact with the caregivers” at these two hospitals, he added.
Earlier Sunday, the Israeli military said it had “enabled the evacuation” of the two hospitals and opened an additional route to facilitate the safe passage of the civilian population to the south of the Gaza Strip.
Doctors and aid groups on Saturday said two out of 39 babies had died in Al-Shifa’s neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off.
Melanie Ward, chief executive of the group Medical Aid for Palestinians, said, “The transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process. With ambulances unable to reach the hospital - particularly those with the skills and equipment needed to transfer these babies - and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this [evacuation] can be done safely.”
NETANYAHU ‘RULES OUT’ FUTURE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appeared to rule out any future role for the current Palestinian Authority in a post-war Gaza.
When asked on Israel’s post-war plans for Gaza, Israeli Netanyahu seemed to rule out handing control to the Palestinian Authority (PA), saying the organisation had failed to “demilitarise” and “deradicalise” Gaza in the past.
He told CNN’s Dana Bash that Israel’s first priority was to destroy Hamas, and once that is achieved, then there would need to be “an overriding Israeli military envelope,” to avoid a resurgence of terrorism, the Israeli leader said.
“A civilian authority has to co-operate in two goals; one is to demilitarise Gaza and the second is to deradicalise Gaza,” he said.
“And I have to say that the Palestinian Authority has unfortunately failed on both counts.”
He instead described putting in place a “reconstructed civilian authority,” to avoid falling into “the same rabbit hole.”
FIVE US MILITARY KILLED IN HELICOPTER CRASH
Five American service members were killed when a helicopter crashed into the Mediterranean during a training exercise, the US military said.
Military officials did not specify where the helicopter was flying from, but the United States has deployed a carrier strike group to the Mediterranean as part of efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiralling into a regional conflict.
“During a routine air refuelling mission as part of military training, a US military aircraft carrying five service members suffered a mishap and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. All five of the service members on-board the aircraft were killed,” the US European Command (EUCOM) said in a statement.
In a statement from the White House, President Joe Biden paid tribute to the victims, who died on a weekend when Americans were honouring military veterans.
ISRAELI JETS STRIKE SOUTH LEBANON
Israeli fighter jets pounded Hezbollah hideouts in southern Lebanon with air strikes on Sunday, after a missile strike wounded Israeli civilians near the border, the army said.
The Israeli army said “a number of civilians were wounded” in the antitank missile strike near the village of Dovev, just 800 metres from the frontier with Lebanon.
In response, “fighter jets struck a number of Hezbollah terror targets” including “military infrastructure used by Hezbollah to direct its terrorist activity”, the army said.
The Israel Electric Corporation said that the missile from Lebanon had “hit employees” who were in Dovev to repair power lines downed by earlier strikes.
Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility and said it had fired on an Israeli team installing “eavesdropping and spying devices” near the border.
DEADLY STRIKE ON UN COMPOUND
The United Nations said several people have been killed and wounded in strikes on a UN facility in Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians have taken refuge to escape the war.
“The shelling has reportedly resulted in a significant number of deaths and injuries,” the United Nations Development Programme said in a statement.
In a separate incident, AFPTV footage showed a crater in the middle of a compound of a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Beit Lahia in north Gaza.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon said gunfire from an unidentified source hit a member of its contingent early Sunday, adding that the peacekeeper was in a stable condition.
The statement from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) did not indicate whether the incident was linked to ongoing exchanges of fire on the Lebanese border, mainly between Hezbollah and Israel, since a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 triggered war.
– with AFP
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