KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Patients, staff and displaced people left Gaza’s largest hospital Saturday, health officials said, leaving behind only Israeli forces and a skeleton crew to care for those too sick to move. The exodus came on the day internet and phone service was restored in the Gaza Strip. That ended a telecommunications outage that forced the United Nations to halt crucial aid deliveries.
Dozens of people were killed in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp when what witnesses described as an Israeli airstrike hit a crowded UN shelter in the main fighting zone in the northern Gaza Strip. It caused massive destruction at the camp’s Fakhoura school, Ahmed Radwan and Yassin Sharif said.
“The scenes were terrible. Bodies of women and children lay on the ground. Others screamed for help,” Radwan said by phone. Associated Press photos from a local hospital showed more than 20 bodies wrapped in bloodstained sheets.
The Israeli military, which urged Jabaliya residents and others to leave in a social media post in Arabic, had no immediate comment on the attack, saying only that its troops were active in the Jabaliya area “with the aim of “to attack terrorists”. It rarely comments on individual attacks, saying only that it is targeting Hamas while trying to minimize damage to civilians.
“I received horrifying images and footage of scores of people killed and injured at another UNRWA school housing thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza. These attacks must not become commonplace, they must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer,” Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said on X, formerly Twitter.
Attacks also continued in the south of the Gaza Strip. An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building on the outskirts of the town of Khan Younis, killing at least 26 Palestinians, according to a doctor at the hospital where the bodies were taken.
The Israeli military has searched Shifa Hospital for signs of a Hamas command center allegedly located beneath the building – a claim Hamas and hospital staff deny – and is urging the several thousand people still there to do so to leave the building.
On Saturday, the military said the hospital’s director had asked it to help those who want to leave the hospital do so safely. The military said it had not ordered an evacuation and that medical staff were allowed to remain at the hospital to care for patients who could not be moved.
But Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, said the military had ordered the facility to be evacuated and given the hospital an hour to get people out.
After it became apparent that the evacuation was largely complete, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, a Shifa doctor, posted on social media that there were about 120 patients left who could not leave, including some in intensive care and premature babies, and that he and five other doctors had also stayed to care for them to care.
It was not immediately clear where those who left the hospital had gone, as the World Health Organization said 25 hospitals in Gaza were inoperable due to fuel shortages, damage and other problems, and the other 11 were only partially operational.
Israel has said hospitals in northern Gaza were a key target of its ground offensive to dismantle Hamas, claiming they were used as command centers and weapons depots for militant militias, something both Hamas and medical personnel deny.
Israeli troops have surrounded or entered several hospitals, while others have suspended operations due to dwindling supplies and power outages.
The war, now in its seventh week, was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 240 men, women and children. 52 soldiers have been killed since the Israeli offensive began.
According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Another 2,700 were reported missing and believed to be buried under rubble. The count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but more than two-thirds of those killed were women and children; Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
After the war, “Arab troops will no longer enter Gaza. None. We will not be seen as an enemy,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said at a conference in Bahrain organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “How could anyone talk about the future of Gaza if we don’t know what kind of Gaza will be left when this aggression ends?”
GROWING FRUSTRATION
Gaza’s main power plant was shut down at the start of the war, and Israel has cut power. This requires fuel to power the generators needed to operate the telecommunications network, water treatment plants, sanitation facilities, hospitals and other critical infrastructure.
Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the Palestinian Refugee Agency, said 120,000 liters (31,700 gallons) of fuel had arrived, which should last for two days, after Israel agreed on Friday to allow that amount for United Nations use. An additional 10,000 liters (2,642 gallons) are also planned to keep the telecommunications systems running.
The United Nations has warned that Gaza’s 2.3 million people are facing critical shortages of food and water, saying the amount of fuel provided is only half of the minimum daily requirements.
It was not immediately clear when UNRWA would resume aid delivery, which was suspended on Friday.
According to the United Nations, Gaza has received only 10% of its daily food supplies from Egypt, and the shutdown of its water system has led to most of the population drinking contaminated water, leading to outbreaks of disease. According to the United Nations World Food Program, dehydration and malnutrition are increasing and almost all residents are in need of food.
In Jerusalem, thousands of protesters – including families of more than 50 hostages – arrived on the final leg of a five-day trek from Tel Aviv, demanding the government do more to rescue about 240 hostages held by Hamas. Many are angry at the government for refusing to tell them more about what is being done to save them.
Continuation of the strikes
Israel has signaled plans to expand its offensive south, where most of Gaza’s population is now seeking refuge, including hundreds of thousands of people who have heeded Israel’s calls to evacuate Gaza City and the north ahead of its ground offensive.
People moved further south. Along the way, some recovered corpses of strangers. “I found these young men in the car. The car was destroyed,” said Moemen Abu Erban, one of the men traveling. The bodies were placed on a horse-drawn cart and covered with blankets. “Honestly, it’s a difficult thing. There is complete destruction.”
Elsewhere, the Israeli military said its planes hit an alleged militant hideout in the Balata urban refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said five Palestinians were killed.
The deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed in violence in the West Bank since the war began to 212, making it the deadliest period in the territory since the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.
___
Mroue reported from Beirut, Anna from New York. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
___
Complete AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.