WASHINGTON/GAZA/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday Hamas’ attacks on Israel do 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,” Guterres told CNN in an interview, adding that 101 UN personnel have died so far in the Hamas-Israel war that erupted after Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israeli strike destroys Al-Shifa hospital cardiac ward: health official
A Gaza health official said on Sunday that an Israeli air strike destroyed the cardiac ward of the city’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, as fighting raged around the facility.
“The occupier (Israel) completely destroyed the cardiac department of Al-Shifa hospital… The two-storey building has been completely destroyed in an air strike,” Youssef Abu Rish, deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.
Witnesses confirmed that a strike on the hospital, which AFP was unable to independently verify.
WHO says it has lost communication with its contacts in Al Shifa hospital in Gaza
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But it has previously denied deliberately targeting the hospital and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities or tunnels underneath them as command centres and hideouts – a charge Hamas denies.
An Israeli military statement on Sunday said soldiers “opened and secured a passage which enables the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and by ambulances, from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals.”
Israel offers to evacuate babies from main Gaza hospital
Israel’s military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza’s largest hospital on Sunday, where Palestinian officials said two newborns died and dozens more were at risk after fuel ran out amid intense fighting in the area.
Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Israeli military would help evacuate babies from the hospital, at the request of the staff at Al Shifa.
Israel imposes total siege on Gaza, cuts off water supply
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the hospital’s director, told Al Jazeera TV, that protecting patients was the priority.
“We contacted the Red Cross and informed them we ran out of water, oxygen, fuel, and everything,” Abu Salmiya said.
“The premature babies, patients of the intensive care, and even wounded people couldn’t survive with the lack of electricity… If the occupation forces want to evacuate the wounded people to any place in the world that is safer than the Gaza Strip, we are not against that.”
Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can tackle Hamas who it says have placed command centres under and around them.
Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave.
Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter called the evacuations “Gaza’s Nakba” - a reference to mass dispossessions of Palestinians after Israel was founded in 1948.
“Operationally there’s no way to conduct a war the way the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) wants to conduct it inside Gaza territories,” Dichter said. “I don’t know how it will end.”
As the humanitarian situation worsened, Gaza’s border authority said the Rafah crossing into Egypt would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders after closing on Friday.
Israel rules out Jerusalem base for Saudi envoy to Palestinians
Hamas said it had completely or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 25 vehicles in the past 48 hours.
An Israeli military spokesperson said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza.
At a news conference late on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began.
Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month.
Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since Oct. 7, around 40% of them children.
Reports of possible hostage deal
Israel’s three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting.
According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting.
In Tel Aviv, thousands joined a rally to support families of the hostages.
Israeli troops, who went to war to eliminate Hamas after its cross-border attack on October 7, had been clashing with Hamas all night in and around Gaza City where the Al Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, is located.
Ashraf Al-Qidra, who represents the health ministry in Gaza, said the hospital suspended operations after fuel ran out.
He said two babies had died in an incubator as a result. He said there were 45 babies in total.
He said Israeli shelling killed a patient in intensive care and that Israeli snipers on rooftops fired into the medical complex from time to time, limiting people’s ability to move.
The World Health Organisation expressed “grave concern” for the safety of everyone trapped in the hospital by the fighting and said it had lost communications with its contacts there.
‘Totally a war zone’
Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a senior plastic surgeon at Al Shifa, told Reuters there had been continuous bombardment for more than 24 hours. He said most hospital staff and people sheltering there had left, but 500 patients remained. “It’s totally a war zone.
It’s a totally scary atmosphere here in the hospital,“ he said. The military wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it was “engaged in violent clashes in the vicinity of Al Shifa Medical Complex, Al Nasr neighbourhood, and Al Shati camp in Gaza.”
Al Nasr is home to several major hospitals.
Israel said earlier it had killed what it called a Hamas who it said had prevented the evacuation of another hospital in the north, which Palestinian officials have said is out of service and surrounded by tanks.
It said Ahmed Siam was killed along with other Hamas while hiding in the Al Buraq school.
Palestinian officials told Reuters on Friday at least 25 Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli strike at the school, which was packed with evacuees.
In London, at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched and police arrested over 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter-protesters ambushing the rally.
Over 20,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels.
Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Muslim and Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel’s justification of self-defence.
A communique issued at the summit urged the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing.”