Two major hospitals in northern Gaza have closed to new patients amid Israeli airstrikes and heavy fighting around both facilities, as medical staff were left without oxygen, medical supplies or fuel to power incubators.
Intense clashes are continuing around Gaza’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, and another major facility, al-Quds, as Israel presses its offensive against Hamas in the territory.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday that it had managed to contact al-Shifa after three days without electricity, water and functioning internet, and that “the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore”.
The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on X, formerly Twitter: “The constant gunfire and bombings in the area have exacerbated the already critical circumstances. Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly.
“The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair.”
Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia, which is home to the world’s largest Muslim population, also called for a ceasefire. Speaking in Riyadh ahead of meeting with Joe Biden in Washington on Monday, Widodo said, “A ceasefire must be implemented soon, we also must accelerate and increase the amount of humanitarian aid, and we must begin peace negotiations.”
Israeli forces appear close to reaching many of their objectives in Gaza, sweeping across a swath of the northern sector of the territory, which is seen as Hamas’s stronghold, though the organisation’s top leaders seem to have escaped the military onslaught so far.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said Hamas’s attacks on Israel in which the militant group killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, did not justify the collective punishment of Palestinians. “You cannot use the horrific things that Hamas did as a reason for collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he told CNN.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has denied that Israeli forces have targeted the al-Shifa hospital and claimed that “everything is operating” at the site.
Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave through “humanitarian corridors” that its forces have arranged so it can tackle Hamas gunmen who, it says, have placed command centres under and around them.
“We understand it is very dire, and it is very very cynical on behalf of Hamas,” said Lt Col Richard Hecht, an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson.
Hamas denies using hospitals this way. Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved, and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave.
As the war enters its sixth week, pressure is growing on Israel to agree to a ceasefire as allies such as the US and France express growing concern at the death toll since the Israeli offensive was launched. On Sunday, however, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, struck a different note, saying he did not think a ceasefire or “long pause” would be right.
Photograph: Obtained By Reuters/Reuters
“That would mean ultimately that Israel leaves Hamas the possibility of recovering and obtaining new missiles,” he said, calling instead for “humanitarian pauses”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said that fighting in Gaza was “severely impacting hospitals and taking a horrific toll on civilians and medical staff”. He condemned Hamas for using hospitals and civilians “as human shields” and urged Israel to show maximum restraint.
The Hamas-run health ministry said on Friday that 11,078 people had been killed in air and artillery strikes since the Israeli offensive began in Gaza, about 40% of them children, and that 13 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, on Sunday.
The death toll has not been updated since then, Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said on Sunday because medics were unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) confirmed this in its update on Sunday, writing, “On 12 November, for the second consecutive day, following the collapse of services and communications at hospitals in the north, the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza did not update casualty figures.”
It added that three nurses had reportedly been killed at al-Shifa, and that 10 patients and two babies had died since the power outage, while 36 more babies were at risk of dying because of the lack of power for incubators. Marwan Abu Sada, the head of surgery at al-Shifa, said a total of three babies had now died.
“Bombardments and armed clashes around the Shifa hospital in Gaza city intensified since the afternoon of 11 November. Critical infrastructure, including the oxygen station, water tanks and a well, the cardiovascular facility, and the maternity ward, was damaged, and three nurses killed,” UNOCHA wrote in an update published on Sunday.
Khan Younis is inside the area to which Israel’s military has been directing Palestinians to evacuate.
Israel has cut most supplies of electricity, fuel, water and food to Gaza, causing acute suffering to the population of 2.3 million. Many are now crammed into private homes, makeshift shelters in schools and other accommodation without sufficient clean water, appropriate treatment for chronic medical conditions or food.
In some shelters, hundreds share a single toilet and poor hygienic conditions are leading to the outbreak of infectious diseases. The IDF said Israel was trying to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza, but only a fraction of aid that usually enters has reached the needy.
There remains overwhelming support for the war among Israelis, but the issue of how to obtain the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza is more divisive. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hinted on Sunday at a potential deal to free the more than 240 but declined to provide details.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said he would not agree to a ceasefire in Gaza without the release of the hostages taken by Hamas during its attack.
“We heard that there was an impending deal of this kind or of that kind and then we learned that it was all hokum. But the minute we started the ground operation, that began to change,” Netanyahu told the US NBC show Meet the Press.
Asked whether there was now a potential deal to free more of the hostages being held by Hamas militants, Netanyahu replied: “There could be.”
Netanyahu pledged again in a televised address on Saturday to bring the hostages home and also threatened Hezbollah, the Islamist militia based in southern Lebanon.
Skirmishes between the Iran-backed group and the Israeli military continued to intensify along the Lebanon-Israel border on Sunday, threatening to escalate into another front.
Attacks by Hezbollah wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 other people, Israel’s military and rescue services said. The Israeli military said it had identified 15 launches from Lebanon over the past hour and that its defence systems had intercepted four of them. The rest fell into open areas.
Hamas’s military wing, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for shelling Haifa, the Israeli port city, and the Israeli border towns of Na’ura and Shlomi from southern Lebanon without giving any further details.
The strikes on Haifa were the first to target the city since the beginning of the conflict, and signalled a new escalation. Israel struck several southern Lebanese towns, including Yaroun, Mays al-Jabal and Alma al-Shaab, in response.
While largely contained, clashes have increased in intensity as Israel conducts its ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
“I have warned Hezbollah: do not make a mistake and enter the war because this will be the mistake of your lives. Your entry into the war will decide Lebanon’s fate,” Netanyahu said.
Thousands joined a rally outside the Tel Aviv Museum Square, which has been informally renamed Hostages Square, on Saturday night to support families of the hostages, while Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there had been some progress toward a deal to win their release.
The complex balancing of conflicting threats and objectives – to keep Hezbollah out of the war, “crush” Hamas and release the hostages – is placing immense strain on Israel’s resources. More than 300,000 reservists remain mobilised, crippling swaths of the economy. The IDF has said 46 servicemen and women had been killed since its ground operations in Gaza began.
