KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Health authorities said 31 premature babies in “extremely critical condition” were safely transferred from Gaza’s main hospital on Sunday and were being taken to Egypt, while over 250 patients with severely infected wounds and other urgent medical conditions were stranded for days were after Israeli forces entered the site to search for Hamas operations.
The fate of the babies, along with Israeli claims against Shifa Hospital, have become powerful symbols in the devastating war between Israel and Hamas. An Israeli offensive took a heavy toll on Palestinian civilians, while Israel accused Hamas of using Shifa and other hospitals as headquarters for military operations.
The newborns from the hospital, where power was out and supplies were running low as Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants outside, received urgent care in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. In some cases they suffered from dehydration, hypothermia and sepsis, said Mohamed Zaqout, director of Gaza’s hospitals. Four other babies died in the two days before the evacuation, he said.
A World Health Organization team that visited Shifa said most of the remaining patients had suffered amputations, burns or other trauma. Plans were made to evacuate them in the coming days.
Later on Sunday, the Israeli army said it had strong evidence to support its claim that Hamas maintained a sprawling command post within and under Shifa. Israel has portrayed the hospital as a key target in its war to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza after the militant group advanced into southern Israel six weeks ago.
The Army said it found a 55-meter (60-yard) tunnel about 10 meters (33 feet) beneath the hospital’s 20-acre complex, which includes several buildings, garages and a plaza. The tunnel contained a staircase and a shooting hole that could be used by snipers, and ended at a blast-proof door that troops had not yet opened.
The Associated Press could not independently verify Israel’s results. That included surveillance camera video that the military said showed two foreign hostages, a Thai woman and a Nepalese woman, being taken to hospital after the Oct. 7 attack.
The Army also said an independent medical report found that Cpl. Noa Marciano, whose body was recovered in Gaza, was killed by Hamas in hospital. According to Israeli intelligence, Marciano was injured on November 9 in an Israeli attack that killed her captor. The injuries were not life-threatening, but she was then killed by a Hamas militant in Shifa, the army said.
Hamas and hospital staff have denied allegations of a command post under Shifa. Critics describe the hospital as a symbol of Israel’s reckless endangerment of the civilian population. Thousands have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, which is facing shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan rejected the Israeli military’s announcement and did not deny that there are hundreds of kilometers of tunnels in Gaza. However, he said: “The Israelis said there was a command and control center, which means it is more than just a tunnel.”
Hostage negotiations
The Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas dragged about 240 prisoners back to Gaza and destroyed Israel’s sense of security, killed about 1,200 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians. According to the military, 63 Israeli soldiers were killed, including 12 in the last 24 hours.
Hamas released four hostages, Israel rescued one and the bodies of two were found near Shifa.
Israel, the USA and Qatar, which is mediating with Hamas, have been negotiating the release of hostages for weeks. “We hope that we can free a significant number of hostages in the coming days,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, told ABC’s “This Week.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the sticking points were “more practical and logistical.”
Israel’s three-member war cabinet will meet with representatives of the hostages’ families on Monday evening.
SHIP ATTACHED
Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the southern Red Sea on Sunday and took its 25 crew members hostage, an action that raised fears that regional tensions heightened by the war could spill over to the seas. The Iran-backed rebel group said it would continue to attack ships linked to Israel.
There were no Israelis aboard the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, operated by a Japanese company with crew members from the Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico, officials said. Public shipping databases linked the ship’s owners to Ray Car Carriers, a company founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, considered one of Israel’s richest people.
Ungar told the Associated Press he was aware of the incident but could not comment as he was awaiting details. An associated ship experienced an explosion in the Gulf of Oman in 2021. Israeli media at the time blamed Iran for this.
The Galaxy Leader was seized about 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the coast of Yemen, near the coast of Eritrea, and taken to the port city of Hodeida, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said, citing a security official from the ship’s company.
Japanese officials were negotiating with Houthi rebels to release the ship and its crew, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.
Fierce fighting in the north
Serious clashes were reported in the established Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. “The sound of gunfire and tank fire could be heard constantly,” Yassin Sharif, who is taking refuge in a United Nations-run hospital there, said by telephone.
The U.N. agency’s commissioner-general for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said 24 people were killed the day before in an Israeli airstrike on a U.N.-run school in Jabaliya, witnesses said. The Israeli military, which has repeatedly called on Palestinians to leave the northern Gaza Strip, said only that its troops were active in the area “with the aim of hitting terrorists.”
“This war has resulted in a shocking and unacceptable number of civilian casualties. … This must stop,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement about that strike and another strike at a U.N.-run school within 24 hours.
According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Another 2,700 were reported missing and believed to be buried in rubble. The count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants; Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
According to Palestinian health authorities, 215 Palestinians have been killed in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since the war began.
COLDER WEATHER INCREASE THE MISERIES
More than two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled their homes. The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is struggling to provide basic services to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Seventeen of its facilities were directly affected, the agency said.
Their misery has worsened in recent days due to cold winds and torrential rain.
Over the weekend, Israel allowed UNRWA to import enough fuel to continue humanitarian operations for a few more days and to keep internet and telephone systems running. Israel stopped all fuel imports at the start of the war, leading to the closure of Gaza’s only power plant and most water treatment systems.
Israel has repeatedly attacked alleged militant targets in the south, often killing civilians.
The evacuation zone is already crowded with displaced civilians, and it was not clear where they would go as the offensive approached. Egypt has refused to accept the influx of Palestinian refugees, in part because of fears that Israel would not allow them to return.
However, some patients and foreigners reportedly got through. Turkey’s health ministry said it had evacuated 110 people – including patients and their relatives – from an unspecified part of Gaza to Egypt. Another 87 people from Turkey or breakaway northern Cyprus entered Egypt from Gaza late Sunday, Turkish officials said. The groups are scheduled to be flown to Turkey on Monday.
Palestinian-Canadian Khalil Manaa, 71, left Gaza for Egypt on Sunday. After fleeing to the south of the Gaza Strip, he shared a house crowded with 40 people with his relatives. “And we were also subjected to violent strikes there. … A rocket hit our house,” he said.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Robert Badendieck in Istanbul contributed.
___
Complete AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.