GAZA
\nThe spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said that operations in Al Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, were suspended on Saturday after it ran out of fuel
\n\u201cAs a result, one newborn baby died inside the incubator, where there are 45 babies,\u201d Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza told Reuters.
\nIsrael\u2019s military, which residents said had been fighting Hamas gunmen all night in and around Gaza City where the hospital is located, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\n\u201cThe situation is worse than anyone can imagine. We are besieged inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex, and the occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside,\u201d Qidra said by telephone.
\nThe Israeli military has said that Hamas militants who rampaged through southern Israel last month have placed command centers under Shifa hospital and others in Gaza, making them vulnerable to being considered military targets.
\nHamas has denied using civilians as human shields and health officials say growing numbers of Israeli strikes on or near hospitals put at risk patients, medical staff and thousands of evacuees who have taken shelter in and near their buildings.
\n\u201cThe occupation forces are firing on people moving inside the complex, which is limiting our ability to move from one department to another. Some people tried to leave the hospital and they were fired at,\u201d Qidra said, adding that there was no electricity and no Internet.
\nAid agency Doctors Without Borders said it was \u201cextremely concerned\u201d about the safety of patients and medical staff at Al-Shifa hospital.
\n\u201cOver the last few hours, the attacks against Al-Shifa Hospital have dramatically intensified,\u201d it said in a statement posted online on Saturday morning.
\n\u201cOur staff at the hospital have reported a catastrophic situation inside just a few hours ago.\u201d
\nMaher Sharif, a nurse heading to the Al-Shifa hospital when it was struck on Friday, described how people threw themselves to the ground.
\n\u201cI saw dead bodies, including women and children,\u201d she said, according to a statement by Doctors Without Borders.
\nGaza resident Hanane told AFP his daughter was being treated at Al-Shifa after being wounded as she queued outside a bakery. She \u201cstarts shaking\u201d with each explosion, he said.
\nMany people have taken refuge in the hospital grounds. AFP journalists saw people in beds lined up along a corridor. Some cooked meals with gas cannister stoves and ate while sitting on the floor.
\nTwenty of Gaza\u2019s 36 hospitals are \u201cno longer functioning,\u201d the UN\u2019s humanitarian agency said.
\nIsrael has denied targeting hospitals and its army has accused Hamas of using the medical facilities as command centers and hideouts, a charge the Palestinian militant group denies.
\nIsraeli forces would \u201ckill\u201d Hamas militants if they saw them \u201cfiring from hospitals,\u201d however, military spokesman Richard Hecht said.
\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself after the last month\u2019s Hamas attacks.
\nHamas fighters smashed through the border on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 239 people hostage, according to updated Israeli figures. But Macron told the BBC that civilians were dying as a result of Israel\u2019s air and expanding ground campaign.
\n\u201cThese babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed,\u201d the French leader said. \u201cSo there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.\u201d
\nThe Gaza health ministry says Israeli fighting has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly civilians and many of them children, figures that cannot be independently verified.
\nUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken also expressed concern over the civilian toll. \u201cFar too many Palestinians have been killed,\u201d he said during a visit to New Delhi on Friday.
\nBlinken repeated his support for Israel and welcomed \u201cprogress\u201d after the country formally agreed to four-hour pauses in its campaign in parts of Gaza where tens of thousands have fled in search of safety.
\n\u201cI was also very clear that much more needs to be done in terms of protecting civilians and getting humanitarian assistance to them,\u201d Blinken said.
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to Macron\u2019s comments that Hamas, not Israel, was to blame for the civilian deaths.
\nNetanyahu repeated that Israel was trying to avoid harming civilians but that Hamas was preventing them from moving to safe areas and using them as \u201chuman shields\u201d \u2014 a charge Hamas denies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GAZA The spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said that operations in Al Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, were suspended on Saturday after it ran out of fuel \u201cAs a result, one newborn baby died inside the incubator, where there are 45 babies,\u201d Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-367690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n