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Israeli tanks have surrounded a hospital in Gaza, the director told CNN, as the territory’s largest health facility was reportedly under “bombardment,” heightening fears on Friday that Israel’s military deployment is further endangering patients and medical staff in the Gaza Strip.
Mustafa al-Kahlout, head of Al-Nasr Hospital and Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in northern Gaza, told CNN that they were surrounded and asked the Red Cross for help with the evacuation. “We are completely surrounded, there are tanks outside the hospital and we cannot leave,” al-Kahlout said.
The hospital complex is near the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood and Al Shati camp, where ground fighting has been reported by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas, respectively. “We have no electricity, no oxygen for patients, we have no medicine and no water,” al-Kahlout said. “We don’t know our fate.”
His call comes after strikes were reported near several other hospitals in northern Gaza, including Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory’s largest medical facility.
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A spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that al-Shifa was “under attack,” adding that 20 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were “out of order.”
Asked about a possible Israeli airstrike on al-Shifa hospital on Friday, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in a briefing: “I don’t have details on al-Shifa, but we know they are being bombed.”
The Israeli military claimed late Friday that a misfired projectile fired from the Gaza Strip was responsible for the attack on al-Shifa hospital.
“Today the IDF received reports of an attack on Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. “The Hamas-run media office in the Gaza Strip immediately claimed that this was an IDF attack,” IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said in a statement sent to CNN.
The IDF said an investigation into its operating systems revealed that “a misfired projectile fired by terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip hit Shifa Hospital.”
Hecht further claimed that the projectile was aimed at “IDF troops operating nearby.”
Several social media videos showed injured people in al-Shifa’s so-called ambulance.
It’s unclear what hit the hospital, but videos show injured people lying on the floor of the outside clinic. Witnesses in the videos say there were strikes in the area. CNN could not confirm that these were strikes.
In a Facebook statement, Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza said that due to the “attacks on the surroundings of Al-Awda Hospital… and the surroundings of the Indonesian hospital” by Israeli forces, ten of its employees were injured and the infrastructure was damaged. Nine vehicles were affected.
These included “two ambulances that were completely damaged,” the hospital said in a statement.
Meanwhile, at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, an impending closure could lead to the deaths of patients, including babies, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) warned in a statement early Saturday local time.
“Al-Quds Hospital is in danger of being closed in the next three hours as fuel supplies are exhausted and help is not arriving,” the PRCS said. “500 patients and injured people will be excluded from medical care. Those in intensive care and babies in incubators will lose their lives.”
On Wednesday, the PRCS said it would scale back most of its activities to ensure the provision of minimal services due to the fuel shortage.
Human rights groups say Israel’s mass bombing of civilian areas, evacuation orders and blockade of the territory constitute war crimes.
Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
A Palestinian child is treated at Nasser Medical Hospital following a strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, November 7.
The IDF did not comment on the incidents but repeatedly called on civilians to move south of Wadi Gaza, a waterway that cuts through the center of the Gaza Strip, as it intensifies its assault on Gaza City and the territory’s north .
The IDF has stated that Hamas is embedding itself in civilian infrastructure and that it will attack Hamas “wherever necessary.” Earlier this month, the IDF released aerial images that purportedly showed rocket launchers and an opening to a tunnel near two hospitals in Gaza. CNN cannot verify these claims. The Palestinian Authority’s Ramallah-based Health Ministry and Hamas-controlled government media have rejected claims that hospitals are being used as shields for attacks.
Israel began its offensive in the Gaza Strip after the October 7 Hamas attacks. While Israel had previously said 1,400 people were killed in the attacks, officials on Friday said the total number of people killed was now around 1,200.
The fatalities also include foreign workers and other foreign nationals, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat confirmed.
The current estimate of 1,200 is not a final number, Haiat stressed, as some of the bodies have yet to be identified.
Since then, the Israeli military has intensified its campaign in northern Gaza in recent days, effectively dividing the area in two, with its ground operations and fiercest air strikes appearing to be focused on the north.
More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive so far, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, which cited sources in Hamas-controlled territory. According to the ministry, at least 4,506 children and 3,027 women were killed and over 27,000 other people were injured in Israeli attacks. CNN cannot independently verify these figures.
However, the impact on health facilities has raised concerns about the dire humanitarian situation of those remaining in the northern Gaza Strip. Most hospitals in Gaza – 18 out of 35 – have ceased operations, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said, which draws its numbers from Hamas-controlled territory, said on Thursday.
In addition, 71% of all primary care facilities have been closed due to damage or lack of fuel, the ministry said. The statement said that the hospitals that remain open will only be able to provide limited services and will be gradually closed.
Meanwhile, Volker Türk, the United Nations’ top human rights official, on Friday expressed doubts about Israel’s unilateral establishment of “safe zones” in the Gaza Strip, saying that nowhere in the territory is safe for civilians.
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Streams of Palestinians – including women, children and the elderly – are heading south in a growing exodus along daily evacuation corridors announced by the Israeli military.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday: “Far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered in recent weeks” – one of his most direct condemnations of the civilian casualties caused by the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
This story has been updated with additional developments.