KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza City overnight and ground forces Sunday. Fighting with Hamas militants Near the region’s largest hospital, health officials say thousands of doctors, patients and displaced people are stranded without electricity and dwindling supplies.
Prime Minister in a televised address on Saturday Benjamin Netanyahu International calls for a ceasefire pending the release of nearly 240 hostages taken by Hamas have been rejected. October 7 in frenzy That triggered the war, with Israel saying it would bring its “full force” to war.
Israel has vowed to end Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities, while blaming the militants for the war’s toll on the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory. But it has come under international pressure over the plight of civilians.
In Gaza City, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling overnight, including shelling In the area around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of hiding a command post inside and under the hospital compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff.
“We spent the night panicking for their arrival,” said Ahmed al-Borsh, a resident who took refuge in the hospital. “They are outside, not far from the gates.”
Hospitals are out of service
The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four patients, the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said. It says another 36 children are at risk of dying due to lack of electricity.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Munir al-Borsh, said Israeli snipers were stationed around Shifa, shooting any movement inside the compound. He said the airstrikes destroyed several houses next to the hospital and killed three people, including a doctor.
“There are wounded people at home and we cannot reach them,” he told Al Jazeera television in an interview from the hospital. “We can’t stick our heads out the window.” It is not clear if he is related to another man with the same surname.
Israel’s military said there was a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but people sheltering in hospitals said they were afraid to go out. The army said troops would help move the children on Sunday and it was in touch with hospital staff.
The situation in and around the hospital could not be independently ascertained.
The health ministry says there are still 1,500 patients in Shifa, 1,500 medical staff and 15,000 to 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have been discharged from Shifa and other hospitals, but doctors say it is unlikely that everyone will.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Rescue Service said another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, was “no longer functional” because it had run out of fuel. Gaza’s only power plant was forced to close a month ago, and Israel has banned any fuel imports, which Hamas says are used for military purposes.
Red Cross spokesman Nepal Farzak said 6,000 people, including displaced families, patients and medical staff, were trapped in the hospital.
With Shifa and other hospitals now inaccessible, residents in Gaza City said they were cut off from emergency care. Heba Mashla, who sought refuge at the UN compound with thousands of families, said four people were killed and 15 wounded in the strike late Saturday.
“The injured are bleeding and no one can come and help them,” he said, adding that the dead were buried inside the compound. The UN Development Program confirmed that one of its compounds had been hit. UN agencies have been unable to provide services in the north for weeks.
Netanyahu rejected the post-war vision
Netanyahu has said that Hamas is responsible for any harm to civilians. Israel has long accused the group of using civilians as human shields, operating in densely populated areas.
On Saturday, Netanyahu began to outline Israel’s Post-War Plans for GazaThis contrasts sharply with the view advanced by the United States.
Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain the ability to freely enter Gaza to hunt down militants. He also dismissed the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some point control Gaza. Hamas drove PA forces from Gaza in a week of street fighting in 2007.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said the US opposes it Israel reoccupied Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward Palestinian statehood. Before the war, Netanyahu’s government was strongly opposed to Palestinian statehood.
War threatens to trigger a wider conflict, Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon are frequently firing along the border. Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at Israel on Sunday, and Israel responded with artillery. Israel’s electricity company said workers repairing lines damaged in previous attacks were injured, and video footage showed two vehicles bursting into flames.
Exhaust windows, but no suspensions
The U.S. has pressed for temporary pauses to allow for the wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory. are increasingly worse.
But only Israel has Agreed to shorter daily periods During this time civilians could leave the ground war zone in northern Gaza and travel south along two main north-south roads. Israel meanwhile is attacking what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, killing mostly women and children.
Dozens of injured people, including children, were brought to a hospital in Khan Yunis after an Israeli airstrike demolished a building in the southern city. Hospital officials said at least 13 people were killed.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s population has been displaced, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to leave through its Rafah crossing, as well as some humanitarian aid.
More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Does not differentiate Between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people are said to be missing, trapped or dead under the rubble.
At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians in the initial Hamas attack. 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began.
About 250,000 Israelis Forced out Palestinian militants are still firing rockets into communities near Gaza and from Lebanon’s northern border.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Amy Deibel in Jerusalem and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
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Full AP coverage https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
