DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of people appear to have fled Gaza’s largest hospital as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants fight outside its gates, but hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies, are at risk of death due to lack of electricity remained inside, health officials said Monday.
With communications intermittent, it was difficult to resolve conflicting claims from the Israeli military, which said it was providing a safe corridor for people moving south, and Palestinian health officials at the hospital, who said the site was constantly under heavy gunfire surrounded, to bring into harmony.
The military also said it had placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near the hospital to power its generators, but Hamas militants prevented personnel from reaching it. The health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip denied this, saying the fuel provided less than an hour’s worth of electricity.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on social media that Shifa had been without water for three days and was “no longer functioning as a hospital.”
Both sides have taken the hospital’s plight as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week. The fighting was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel’s response has brought unprecedented levels of death and destruction to Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents, nearly two-thirds of whom are without safe refuge had to flee their homes available in the besieged area.
For the Palestinians, Shifa is a reminder of the suffering of the civilian population. Doctors, running out of supplies, are performing operations on war-wounded people, including children, without anesthesia. Thousands of people displaced by airstrikes that destroyed entire city blocks have sought refuge in the dark corridors.
Israel says the hospital is the prime example of Hamas’s alleged use of human shields and claims – without evidence – that the militants had a command center and other military infrastructure in and under the medical compound. Hamas and hospital staff deny these allegations.
Mohammed Zaqout, the director of Gaza’s hospitals, says about 650 patients and seriously injured people are being treated in Shifa by about 500 medical staff. He estimated that around 2,500 displaced Palestinians are seeking refuge in hospital buildings.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Health estimated that around 3,000 doctors and patients as well as 15,000 to 20,000 displaced people were being housed there.
A U.N. health official said many displaced families and patients with moderate injuries fled Shifa as Israeli forces surrounded the hospital over the weekend. The official, who was not authorized to brief reporters and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity, said most of the remaining patients could only be relocated using ambulances and other special procedures.
It is unclear where they would go as several hospitals and clinics in Gaza have been forced to close while others are already at capacity with dwindling supplies.
According to the Health Ministry, three babies and four other patients have died since the hospital’s emergency generator ran out of fuel on Saturday. Another 36 babies and other patients are at risk of death because there is no way to power life-saving medical equipment.
The military said troops would help transport the babies on Sunday, but did not say how they would transport them or where they would be relocated. There was no indication on Monday that any had been postponed.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a Britain-based charity that has supported Shifa’s neonatal intensive care unit, said transferring critically ill infants was complex. “With ambulances unable to reach the hospital … and no hospital having the capacity to accommodate them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely,” said CEO Melanie Ward. She said the only option was to stop the fighting and allow it in the fuel.
Christos Christou, the president of Doctors Without Borders, an international aid group, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that evacuating patients would take weeks.
The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for more widespread distribution of urgently needed aid to civilians in the area where conditions are becoming increasingly dire.
But Israel has agreed to only short daily periods during which civilians can flee ground fighting in northern Gaza and walk south along two main roads. Israel continues to attack what it says are militant targets across the southern Gaza Strip, often killing women and children.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and militant deaths, more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, two-thirds of them women and minors. Around 2,700 people were reported missing.
Health officials, many of whom work out of Shifa, have not updated that toll since Friday due to difficulty gaining access to the hardest-hit areas and gathering information.
On the Israeli side, at least 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians killed in the first Hamas attack. Palestinian militants are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid, including men, women, children and older adults. According to the military, 48 soldiers were killed in ground operations in the Gaza Strip.
About 250,000 Israelis were evacuated from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing rocket fire, and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israel and the militant Hezbollah group exchanged repeated fire, risking a wider conflict. Hezbollah attacks on Sunday left seven Israeli soldiers injured and 10 others injured, Israel’s military and rescue services said.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.
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Complete AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.