Palestinian group, Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has announced the start of military the operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel. Thousands of rockets have been fired from the blockaded enclave towards the occupied territories as far away as Tel Aviv, killing over 1,400 Israelis, including both military and settlers. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been so far killed in an exchange of fire between the two sides.
A Palestinian woman inspects the bodies of victims outside Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital who were killed in Israeli bombardment.
Dr Fadel Naim, a surgeon at al-Ahli Arab Hospital, said the medical facility is the last functioning hospital in Gaza City and the northern areas.
He added the hospital is overwhelmed with casualties.
The Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) said al-Quds hospital in Gaza is now out of service after running out of fuel.
“The cessation of services is due to depletion of available fuel and power outages,” the PRCS announced in a statement.
“Medical staff are making every effort to provide care to patients and the wounded, even resorting to conventional medical methods amid dire humanitarian conditions and a shortage of medicine, food and fuel.”
The PRCS added it had tried to reach out for humanitarian assistance from the international community which comes a day after al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, said it would be suspending services.
Israel has shelled the al-Shifa hospital on Sunday after besieging the medical facility.
The director-general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza made the announcement a day after the al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, shut down services because it had run out of fuel.
Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir hinted at the idea of re-establishing settlements in Gaza that Israel dismantled in 2005 and said it was necessary to re-occupy the besieged enclave.
“Occupation [of the Gaza Strip] is a must. Every time our enemies lost territory, they lost the war,” Ben Gvir told Israeli news outlet Reshel Bet.
“We need to be in full control – that’s what will deter our enemies, convey a message of victory and allow the residents of [Israeli towns near Gaza] to return home,” he added.
“I’m not afraid of renewing the settlements in Gush Katif [inside Gaza].”
The office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Gaza was bombed on Saturday night, the head of the UNDP wrote on X on Sunday.
Achim Steiner said that there were reports of deaths and injuries “among those who sought safety in our compound”.
“This is wrong on every count,” Steiner continued, adding, “Civilians, civilian infrastructure & the inviolability of UN facilities must be always protected.”
Israeli attacks have already killed more than 100 staff members working at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
A number of cancer patients in Gaza have died due to a lack of the necessary medical supplies to treat them, according to a report from Al Jazeera Arabic.
The healthcare system in Gaza is in collapse, according to the health ministry in the besieged enclave.
Israel’s military is currently circling several hospitals in northern Gaza. Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the enclave, is currently under Israeli siege.
The families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government to do more to bring the hostages and missing persons home.
“We await the Israeli government to fulfill the basic contract that was broken. We already paid the price on October 7, now it’s your turn,” said a press release from the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum headquarters.
Families of the hostages held a rally on Saturday in Tel Aviv, Israel, which also included in attendance the former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
More than 200 hostages were taken into Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7.
The families are demanding that the international community and the Red Cross ensure medical assistance for the hostages, “as they do for Hamas”, the press release added.
“Our family members are imprisoned underground in Gaza. Bring them home now,” the statement read.
“Two hundred and thirty nine innocent people went to sleep on the night of October 6 and within less than 24 hours we lost all contact with them, without a drop of information. Where is the Red Cross, the organization that is supposed to care for human rights? Why haven’t they demanded to see the condition of the infants,” said Maayan Zin, mother of Dafna (15) and Ella (8) who were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz in Israel with their father.
Noam Perry, whose 79-year-old father, Haim Perry, was taken from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel stated there can be no healing until the release of all the hostages.
“The living hostages can still be returned and we must not stop until they come home. My father is alive and only God knows how he endures in the underground tunnels at age 80. They are waiting for us to save them. We await the prime minister to fulfill the most basic contract he has with Israel’s citizens that was violated,” Perry continued.
Rivlin added he joins the families in the demand to return all hostages home, and urged world leaders to get information and act within all arenas to free the hostages.
The former president said he also contacted the Red Cross this week and asked them, “How should we respond to your demand to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza when you do not compel Hamas to allow you to visit all the hostages?”
Orly Gilboa, mother of 19-year-old Daniela Gilboa, who was kidnapped from a party in Re’im, Israel stated, “I’ve finished the stage of hugs and empathy. I want to see actions that will bring my daughter and the rest of the hostages home now.”
Brett McGurk, the Joe Biden administration’s top adviser on the Middle East, is expected to travel to Israel, Qatar, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia this week to discuss the war in Gaza and the efforts to secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas, Axios reported citing US and Israeli officials.
Axios reported that McGurk is expected to visit Israel on Tuesday, where he will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and top intelligence officials.
The expected trip comes after US Secretary of Antony Blinken and CIA director Bill Burns have taken similar trips across the region in the past several weeks.
UNICEF called for the protection of hospitals and children in Gaza amid “deeply worrying reports” of the situation in the biggest hospital in the strip.
The UN agency, responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children worldwide, called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
“Al Shifa hospital in Gaza is without power and we are seeing deeply worrying reports of premature babies dying in incubators,” UNICEF said in its statement released early Sunday local time.
The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza also reported early Sunday shelling in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Hospital, warning that it is endangering the lives of patients and the displaced people sheltering inside.
Earlier, three newborn babies died in the Al-Shifa Hospital after it went “out of service” amid intense fighting in the area, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has lost communication with its contacts in Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.
“We assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area,” it announced in a statement early Sunday.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the reports on the situation at Gaza’s biggest hospital as “deeply worrisome and frightening.”
“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,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
Around half a million Palestinian children have been affected by Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement.
The estimated figure includes those who have been killed, injured, or whose family homes have been damaged or destroyed.
The Geneva-based human rights organisation reported that 6,100 children have been killed or reported missing under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel’s intense air and artillery attacks on the Strip, stating that chances for their survival diminishes with each passing day.
More than 15,500 children have been injured, the group reported, with dozens of them in critical condition.
Other children have suffered limb amputations, while hundreds more have suffered severe burns to their bodies, the group added.
After more than a month of fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip, only seven out of 18 ambulances run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) are still working, according to a statement from the PRCS on Saturday.
The few remaining ambulances still working are at risk of “completely ceasing operations in the coming hours” due to a lack of fuel, the statement said.
“Our teams are witnessing numerous casualties and wounded individuals, yet they face challenges reaching them due to Israeli military targeting of ambulance vehicles approaching the affected areas,” the PRCS said.
On November 4, Israel claimed responsibility for an attack on a convoy of ambulances outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, according to CNN at the time.
The PRCS said one of its ambulances was damaged in that attack when a shell fell near the convoy.
Israel said it had targeted the ambulance convoy because it was being used by Hamas, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the time of the attack.
The UN’s top humanitarian aid chief Martin Griffiths on Saturday condemned attacks on healthcare facilities after recent strikes in the Gaza Strip.
“Hospitals must be places of greater safety, not of war,” Griffiths wrote in a post on X.
“There can be no justification for acts of war in healthcare facilities, leaving them with no power, food or water, and shooting at patients and civilians trying to flee,” he added.
Griffiths also said that people using and working at Gazan healthcare facilities “must trust that they are places of shelter and not of war.”
The number of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict since October 7 has increased to 40, according to a statement by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Saturday.
The most recent to lose his life was photojournalist Ahmed Al-Qara who was killed in a strike near Khan Younis on Friday, the CPJ said, citing the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the Cairo-based Al-Dostor newspaper.
The death toll of journalists is comprised of 35 Palestinians, four Israelis, and one Lebanese, according to the CPJ.
The journalism advocacy group announced the conflict since October 7 has been the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ starting tracking in 1992.
“CPJ is also investigating numerous unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes,” the statement added.
Negotiations to release more hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attacks are moving in a positive direction, but the situation remains fluid — and the continued bombardment of Gaza isn’t helping matters, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said Saturday.
Qatar, a key US ally in the Middle East, has a close relationship with Hamas, and has emerged as a broker of sorts as negotiations over the release of hostages and humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip continues.
During a Saturday call, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Qatar to press Hamas on allowing more dual nationals to leave Gaza — particularly US dual nationals, according to a source familiar with the call. Al-Thani told Blinken that Qatar will continue to negotiate with Hamas to make that happen.
Hostilities around Al-Shifa Hospital Saturday “have not stopped”, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders.
“The ambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating,” the organization said in a statement.
A freelance journalist based at the hospital told CNN there were still dozens of bodies at the hospital awaiting burial, but that people feared going outside to bury them.
“The situation is very difficult and dire. After a slowdown in shelling this afternoon, the shelling and gunfire resumed, heavily targeting anything that moves,” Mustafa Sarsour stated.
Medics inside the hospital are working by candlelight, Sarsour added. Other resources are also getting scarce.
“We are running out of canned food. The food is being rationed on patients and medical crews, and I have even seen doctors and nurses giving their own food to patients. … Now the electricity is cut off, people (have) started drinking the pipe water,” the journalist continued.
The health ministry in Gaza said the hospital was under “complete siege” Saturday, and that a floor of the complex’s surgery building was heavily shelled. The ministry added three newborn babies died at the hospital after it “went out of service” due to heavy damage.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society received 53 aid trucks packed with vital supplies —including food, water, relief items, medical equipment and medications, but no fuel — the group said Saturday.
“Since October 21, 2023, a total of 904 trucks have been received, averaging around 41 trucks per day,” the aid organization added.
“Unfortunately, the Israeli occupying authorities have not permitted the entry of fuel so far.”
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