The Israeli military has reached the gates of Gaza’s largest hospital as hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies, remained trapped inside. Thousands of people have fled al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but health officials said the remaining patients were dying due to energy shortages. At least 32 patients, including three premature babies, had died in the past three days, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
At least 11,240 Palestinians have been killed, including 4,630 children and 3,130 women in Gaza by the Israeli military since 7 October, the health ministry said on Monday.
Joe Biden has said al-Shifa “must be protected” and called for “less intrusive action” by Israeli forces. “It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action,” the US president said on Monday.
All of the hospitals in northern Gaza are “out of service” amid fuel shortages and intense combat, the health ministry in the besieged territory said on Monday. Two major hospitals in northern Gaza – al-Shifa and al-Quds – have closed to new patients due to Israeli airstrikes and heavy fighting around both facilities as medical staff were left without oxygen, medical supplies or fuel to power incubators.
The director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has warned that the group’s aid operations in Gaza will be shut down in the next 48 hours unless fuel is allowed into the besieged territory. UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said the agency’s fuel depot in Gaza had run dry and would no longer be able to resupply hospitals, remove sewage and provide drinking water.
UNRWA said that one of its schools in northern Gaza and a building designated as a residence for UN international staff in the Rafah area were directly hit by strikes. It did not say who was responsible for the strikes. The UN agency also said it had received “extremely concerning” reports that Israeli security forces had entered one UNRWA school and two UNRWA health centres in the Gaza Strip with tanks and used them for military operations. Earlier, it said one of its buildings in Rafah had been struck by Israel’s navy. Rafah is in the south of the Gaza Strip, within the area Israel has insisted Palestinians move to.
Trucks transporting desperately needed aid through the Rafah crossing from Egypt could stop operations on Tuesday due to a lack of fuel. “Humanitarian ceasefire, fuel supplies – all of these should be happening now. We are running out of time before really facing major disaster,” Andrea De Domenico, the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office in the occupied Palestinian territory, told journalists on Monday.
Israel claims it has uncovered a Hamas operations centre beneath the Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza City, and evidence suggesting that hostages taken on 7 October were held there. Separately, CNN reported that “a US official with knowledge of American intelligence” said that Hamas had “a command node” under the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
At least three Palestinians have been killed and 20 others injured after an Israeli airstrike hit Bani Suheila, a town east of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, health officials said on Monday.
The armed wing of Hamas says it discussed with Qatari mediators the release up to 70 women and children hostages in Gaza in exchange for a five-day Israeli ceasefire. Israel has rejected any possibility of a ceasefire until the release of all 240 of the hostages.
UN workers observed a minute’s silence on Monday for the more than 100 colleagues killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began last month, marking the deadliest conflict ever for UN workers. At least 101 employees of the UNRWA have been killed since 7 October.
Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, has acknowledged the growing international pressure for a ceasefire. He also estimated that Israel has a “diplomatic window” of two to three weeks before pressure on the country seriously begins to increase, local media reported.
Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has urged Joe Biden to do more to stop the “atrocities” in Gaza and help bring about a ceasefire. Widodo, the leader of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, held talks with the US president on Monday at the White House.
The EU’s humanitarian aid chief called on Monday for “meaningful” pauses in the fighting and urgent deliveries of fuel to keep hospitals working in the territory. The EU’s 27 countries issued a statement on Sunday saying hospitals “must be protected” and condemning Hamas for using the medical facilities and civilians as “human shields”.
One hundred US government officials from the state department and international development agency have signed an internal memo criticising the White House for “disregarding the lives of Palestinians” and for showing an “unwillingness to de-escalate” in the Israel-Hamas war.
The archbishop of Canterbury has called for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, saying the scale of civilian deaths and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza cannot be “morally justified”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has set out proposals for how Gaza should be run after the war between Israel and Hamas. EU foreign ministers are also looking at a Cypriot proposal to open up a maritime corridor for urgent humanitarian aid for Gaza.
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, has let it be known that he is available if needed to help in an effort to end the growing crisis in Israel and Palestine. His office, however, denied a report in the Israeli press that he had already been offered a specific job.
