Israel-Palestine conflict LIVE: Palestine Red Crescent Society says Gaza’s second largest hospital out of service

Israel’s Prime Minister says a deal may be close to free captives held in the Gaza Strip but declined to provide details.

“We heard 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,” Benjamin Netanyahu told NBC News show Meet the Press.

Asked whether there is a potential deal to free more of the hostages being held, Netanyahu replied: “There could be.”

A Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks told the Reuters news agency that Hamas suspended negotiations because of Israel’s attack and siege on the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

The United States must use its influence to halt Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Turkey’s leader stated.

“The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel… It’s vital for us to secure a ceasefire,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The most important country that needs to be involved is the United States, which has influence on Israel.”

Erdogan added the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land.

“We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches [the war] by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people.”

Palestinian cities, towns and villages remain under blockade while Jerusalem is completely cut off and turned into a military barracks, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) says.

Severe restrictions on movement have been imposed to and from Jordan via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge, the only connection to the outside world from the occupied West Bank, the PLO added.

Robert Mardini, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, says Gaza hospitals treating hundreds of wounded people cannot be targeted under any circumstances.

“Hospitals are to be absolutely protected at all times. The onus and the obligation are always on the parties of the conflict not to use hospitals as a battle zone,” Mardini told Al Jazeera.

“Even if a hospital is used by a party as a launching pad for attacks, it does not justify automatically that hospitals be targeted at a time when women, children and men are being treated. Those are sanctuaries to be protected. We reiterate our call for all parties to stay away from hospitals,” he added.

The Palestinian fatality toll since 7 October includes:

• At least 192 medical staff, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Of them, at least 16 medical staff were killed on duty, according to the World Health Organization.
• 101 UNRWA staff have been killed, the highest number of UN personnel killed in a conflict in the history of the organisation.
• 18 Palestinian civil defense personnel.
• 44 Palestinian journalists have also been killed.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, has told Al Jazeera that al-Shifa Hospital is completely out of service, and cannot provide any treatment even to the patients inside the facility, due to constant Israeli attacks.

Israeli bombing has been targeting the vicinity’s external surroundings as well as anyone walking inside the courtyard and between its various buildings, and those wanting to reach the gate of the complex.

“We have deaths in the nursery after the life support machines stopped working inside the section that includes 37 other children who may be on the verge of death,” al-Qudra said.

He added that there were five deaths among the wounded as the medical teams were unable to perform surgical operations on them due to the power outage and lack of fuel.

The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals in the Gaza Strip where civilians get caught in the crossfire, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has stated.

“The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we’ve had active consultations with the [Israeli army] on this,” Sullivan told CBS News’s Face the Nation programme.

The director general of hospitals in Gaza has warned that the lives of hundreds of patients are at risk due to the catastrophic situation at al-Shifa Hospital.

About 650 patients, including 36 children, have their lives in danger, Muhammad Zaqout said at a press conference, calling on Egypt to save their lives.

Zaqout also confirmed the presence of “about 1,500 displaced people in the al-Shifa Medical Complex”, warning that “accumulation of garbage and medical waste, lack of water, and power outages threaten everyone’s life”.

The Gaza Health Ministry has also announced the intensive care unit (ICU) in al-Shifa Hospital has been badly damaged by Israeli army bombing for a second time.

The situation inside hospitals across the Gaza Strip is a tragedy, UNICEF spokesperson Toby Fricker has said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Jordan, he noted how premature babies inside al-Shifa Hospital are struggling to stay alive due to the lack of electricity and water.

“Imagine being a father or mother of those children and sort of watching helplessly. So it’s really catastrophic right now,” he stated.

“There is no safe place for children anywhere across the strip right now,” he added, highlighting the need for international actors to ensure children in Gaza are protected as the ferocious bombardment continues.

Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila stated Israeli forces “are not evacuating people from hospitals; instead, they are forcibly evicting the wounded and patients onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death”.

“This is not evacuation but expulsion under the threat of arms,” she said in a press release, as cited by Palestinian news agency Wafa.

“There is a catastrophe unfolding in hospitals, with patients now dying without receiving their treatments, such as children and adults with kidney failure who are perishing at home without undergoing dialysis sessions.”

She added all 3,000 cancer patients who were receiving treatment at al-Rantisi and Turkish hospitals had been abandoned to face imminent death after Israeli forces forcibly evicted them.

In an opinion piece published in South Africa’s Sunday Times, the country’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor says she expects the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.

“We call on the prosecutor [of the ICC] to speed up the investigation and explore breaches of three of the four crimes under ICC jurisdiction: war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,” Pandor wrote.

“We expect that warrants of arrest should be executed for those most responsible as per the ICC principles of command and superior responsibility,” she continued, adding that these include Netanyahu and some of his cabinet members.

South Africa is one among several countries to have condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, including recalling its ambassador from Israel.

Pope Francis has called for the fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip to end.

“May the weapons fall silent, they will never bring peace, and let the conflict not spread. Enough, enough brothers, enough!” he said while offering prayers at the Vatican.

The Pope also stated that the injured in Gaza should be helped and more humanitarian aid should be sent to the besieged enclave.

He added that the people taken as captives by Hamas on October 7 should also be released.

“Every human being, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, or whatever religion, every human being is sacred, is precious in the eyes of God, and has the right to live in peace,” he continued.

The number of deaths in the ongoing Israeli military attacks since October 7 has surpassed 11,100, including more than 8,000 children and women, the government media office in Gaza announced on Sunday.

“Due to the targeting of hospitals and the prevention of entry of any of the bodies or wounded, the Ministry of Health was unable, on Saturday, to issue accurate statistics for the numbers of dead and injured during the past hours,” the media office said in a statement.

“We recall that the occupation [forces] committed more than 1,130 massacres, and the number of casualties reached more than 11,100 dead, including more than 8,000 children and women, and the number of wounded was more than 28,000,” it added.

Palestinian surgeon based in Gaza, Ghassan Abu Sitta stated al-Ahli Arab Hospital has run out of blood.

“Our wounded are dying after surgery because we can’t transfuse them,” he wrote on X.

The WHO has announced in a post on X that there are reports that some people who fled Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital “have been shot at, wounded and even killed”.

There are reports that some people who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded and even killed.

— WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (@WHOEMRO) November 12, 2023

Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said on X, “WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital.”

“WHO again calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering,” he added.

“WHO also calls for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients.”

Deeply worrisome and frightening: @WHO has lost contact with its focal points in Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza, amid horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks.

There are reports that some of those who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded, or killed.

The… https://t.co/buhccOjRqF

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 12, 2023

Israeli’s military has announced that its fighter jets carried out strikes against “terror infrastructure” inside Syria.

Israeli officials stated the raids were carried out in response to fire directed at the Golan Heights, which borders Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, on Saturday.

“A short while ago, in response to the attack toward the Golan Heights yesterday [Saturday], IDF [Israel’s army] fighter jets struck terror infrastructure sites in Syria,” Israel’s army wrote in a post on Telegram.

The UN has announced that several hospitals have been “directly hit” as Israel intensified its shelling and ground attacks around hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza.

The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian Territories also notes:

• Power at the Al-Shifa and the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza was reportedly cut off after fuel for generators ran out. Generators at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City failed and could not be repaired due to the bombardment and fighting.
• Tens of thousands of people evacuated towards southern Gaza on Saturday, while hundreds of thousands of people who remain in the north are struggling to get the essentials they need to survive.
• People are drinking water from “unsafe sources” which “raises serious concerns about dehydration and waterborne diseases”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that “infants at Al-Quds Hospital are facing dehydration due to a shortage of breast milk alternatives”.

According to MSF Canada, there more than 600 patients needing medical care trapped in the besieged hospital.

The hospital’s director has stated that this includes 37 premature babies who are struggling to survive after the hospital was forced to abandon its neonatal intensive care unit.

👶Infants at Al-Quds Hospital are facing dehydration due to a shortage of breast milk alternatives.

الاطفال الرضع في مستشفى القدس يعانون من الجفاف بسبب انقطاع الحليب#Gaza#HumanitarianAid #AlQudsHospital #Humantarian_crisis pic.twitter.com/Grd5kdA1Rb

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 11, 2023

The Israeli army confirmed five soldiers were killed during battles in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Ynet news website cited a military statement saying four soldiers were killed in a booby-trapped tunnel in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza while the fifth died in fighting elsewhere.

The number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of ground operations on October 27 rose to 43.

The army is facing fierce battles from armed Palestinian groups in different areas across Gaza.