- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Saudi Arabia will host the Islamic Arab summit on Saturday
- There are increasing calls around the world for Israeli restraint in the Gaza war
- Some health workers flee Al-Shifa Hospital – WHO chief
GAZA, Nov 11 (Portal) – Israel faced increasing international pressure, including from its main ally the United States, to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza as the death toll rose and fighting continued near hospitals increased.
The number of Palestinians killed in the bombardment of the coastal enclave over the past five weeks rose to more than 11,000, according to Gaza health authorities, as Israeli forces waged war on Hamas militants who carried out the deadly rampage in the city on October 7 South of Israel committed.
In his harshest comments yet on the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on a visit to India on Friday: “Far too many Palestinians have been killed; Far too many have suffered in the past weeks.”
But Blinken reiterated U.S. support for Israel’s campaign to ensure Gaza can no longer be used “as a platform for launching terrorism.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel must stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians in a BBC interview published late Friday. France, he said, “unequivocally condemns” Hamas’s “terrorist” actions, while recognizing Israel’s right to protect itself.
“We call on them to stop this bombing,” Macron said.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that world leaders should condemn Hamas, not Israel. “These crimes that Hamas is committing in Gaza today will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York and all over the world,” Netanyahu said.
Israel has said that Hamas militants, who were holding up to 240 hostages of different nationalities in last month’s attack, would take advantage of a ceasefire to regroup if there was a ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia was due to host an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit on Saturday. The Saudi Foreign Ministry said “the countries feel the need to combine their efforts and present a unified common position.”
Before leaving Tehran to attend the summit in Riyadh, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said: “Gaza is not a place for words. It should be a place for action.”
“Today the unity of Islamic countries is very important,” he added.
Iran supports both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group in Gaza, as well as Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon.
Overcrowded hospitals plagued by explosions and gunfire
Fighting intensified on Saturday night near crowded hospitals in Gaza City, which Palestinian officials said were hit by explosions and gunfire.
“Israel is now starting a war against hospitals in Gaza City,” said Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, director of Al Shifa Hospital.
He later said that at least 25 people were killed in Israeli attacks on the Al-Buraq school in Gaza City, where people whose homes had been destroyed were taking refuge.
Gaza officials said rockets struck a courtyard of Al Shifa, the enclave’s largest hospital, in the early hours of Friday, damaging the Indonesian hospital and reportedly setting fire to the Nasser Rantissi children’s cancer hospital.
The Israeli military later said that a projectile fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza misfired and hit Shifa.
The hospitals, filled with displaced people as well as patients and medical staff, are located in the north of the Gaza Strip, where Israel says Hamas fighters are concentrated.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said Hamas headquarters is located in the basement of Shifa Hospital, meaning the facility could lose its protected status and become a legitimate target.
Israel says Hamas is hiding weapons in tunnels under hospitals. Hamas denies this.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said health workers the group came into contact with in Shifa had been forced to leave the hospital in search of safety.
“Many of the thousands accommodated in the hospital have to be evacuated due to security risks, while many still remain there,” Tedros wrote on social media.
‘NOBODY IS SAFE’
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Israel bombed the Shifa Hospital buildings five times.
“One Palestinian was killed and several injured in the early morning attack,” he said by telephone. Videos verified by Portal showed scenes of panic and people covered in blood.
Israeli tanks have taken up positions around Nasser Rantissi Hospital and Al-Quds Hospital, medical staff said earlier.
The Palestinian Red Cross said Israeli forces fired on Al-Quds Hospital and violent clashes broke out, leaving one person dead and 28 injured, most of them children.
Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said at a briefing that the army “does not shoot at hospitals. If we see Hamas terrorists shooting from hospitals, we will do what we have to do. We are aware of the sensitivity (of hospitals). “But again, if we see Hamas terrorists, we will kill them.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said Israel had set up a task force to set up hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip. On October 12, Israel ordered about 1.1 million people in the Gaza Strip to move south ahead of its ground invasion.
Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gazans had been killed by air and artillery strikes since October 7.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7. This was a revision of an earlier death toll, although it added that this could change again once all the bodies were identified.
Israel also said 39 soldiers have been killed in combat since October 7.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; additional reporting by other Portal bureaus; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Edited by Grant McCool & Simon Cameron-Moore
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