Patients cut off from outside world for 2nd day after Israel takes control of Gaza's largest hospital
Options 'limited' to evacuate patients from Al-Shifa Hospital, WHO says
Palestinian medics say they are increasingly afraid for the lives of hundreds of patients and medical staff at Gaza's largest hospital, as they remain cut off from all links to the outside world after Israeli forces entered on Wednesday.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said patients and staff have not been allowed to leave despite there being no water, food nor milk for infants in Al-Shifa Hospital, which was packed with 650 patients and about 7,000 people displaced by weeks of Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments.
"Medical teams, patients and displaced people are fighting death due to the lack of any basic life necessities. The occupation forces are now present in the complex, but they did not provide any fuel for the hospital to continue work," ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said in a statement.
He demanded that the Israeli troops leave.
The director of Al-Shifa Complex, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiah, said the hospital was "under occupation authority for 48 hours and every minute that passes" more patients will die.
"We are waiting for slow death," he told Al Jazeera TV.
Medics have previously said dozens of patients — including three premature babies — had died from a lack of fuel and basic supplies during a days-long siege that culminated with Israeli forces entering the hospital early on Wednesday.
That night, Israeli soldiers searched the facility for evidence to support the military's assertion that Hamas uses the hospital to hide an underground military base and uses medical patients as human shields — statements Hamas has denied.
Israel has so far released pictures of what it says were rifles and flak jackets found on the premises, but no evidence of a vast underground Hamas command headquarters it said was operating in tunnels beneath it. Its commandos were still searching the hospital on Thursday.
"The operation is shaped by our understanding that there is well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex," an Israeli official told Reuters, declining to be identified.
The Israeli Defence Forces released a video in which a soldier toured a hospital building, showing three bags with guns and flak jackets he said had been found stashed there, as well as several other rifles in a closet, and a laptop computer.
Hamas said the video was staged. Other Palestinians said that even on its face, it depicted nothing like the vast underground militant headquarters complex that Israel had claimed was inside the compound.
"These are weak pretexts. There is nothing for the resistance inside medical institutions," said Dr. Nahed Abu Taaema, the director of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, who said medics were alarmed for their colleagues at Al-Shifa after losing contact with them since Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch cautioned that hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law.
"Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises," the watchdog's UN Director Louis Charbonneau told Reuters.
"The Israeli government hasn't provided any evidence of that."
Options 'limited' for hospital evacuation: WHO
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said it was trying to arrange a medical evacuation of patients from Al-Shifa, but was hindered by security concerns, logistic constraints and the inability to communicate with anyone there. WHO officials said 27 of the roughly 600 patients inside were in critical condition, and 36 babies were among the patients.
"Our options are rather limited but we hope to have some better news in the next 24 hours or so," WHO regional emergencies director Rick Brennan told Reuters.
Gaza's main telecommunications companies, Paltel and Jawwal, said all telecom services in Gaza had gone down, as all energy sources supplying the network had run out.
Elsewhere, Israel ordered civilians to leave four towns in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, raising fears war could spread to areas where it had told people they would be safe.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement Israeli forces had cleared the entire west part of Gaza City and that the "next stage has begun." The Israeli military's chief of staff said Israel was close to destroying Hamas's military system in the northern Gaza Strip.
"We will complete it," said Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi.
On Thursday, Global Affairs Canada said it had helped six Canadian citizens, permanent residents and their eligible family members out of the West Bank, bringing the total to 71 departures since the conflict began.
A statement said another 367 had crossed to Egypt from Gaza through the Rafah border as of Thursday.
Humanitarian agencies issued some of their direst warnings about the harm Israel's military campaign in Gaza was causing to civilians since the war began more than a month ago.
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The World Food Programme said the Gaza Strip faced widespread hunger, with supplies of food and water almost exhausted.
"With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation," said the organization's executive director, Cindy McCain.
The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said he believed there was a deliberate attempt to "strangle" its humanitarian work in Gaza, warning the agency may have to entirely suspend its operations due to a lack of fuel.
Israel refuses fuel imports, saying they could be used by Hamas for military purposes.
"If the fuel does not come in, people will start to die because of the lack of fuel. Exactly as from when, I don't know. But it will be sooner rather than later," said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
Israel has already ordered the evacuation of the entire northern half of Gaza before sending in its ground forces at the end of October. Long processions of people clutching just a few possessions have made their way south each day under the eyes of Israeli soldiers during six-hour "tactical pauses" to allow residents to leave.
The United Nations says around two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been made homeless, most of them sheltering in towns in the south since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas.
Hamas militants burst through the fence around Gaza on Oct. 7 in an assault that Israel says killed 1,200 people in the deadliest day in its history, including several Canadian citizens. Around 240 hostages were dragged back to Gaza.
Since then, Israel has pounded Gaza with airstrikes and cut off food and fuel. Gaza health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations said more than 11,000 people have been confirmed killed, more than 40 per cent of them children, although that number hasn't been updated in several days during the recent escalation in fighting.