Israel faces pressure over Gaza deaths as fighting rages near hospitals
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GAZA – Israel is facing mounting international pressure, including from its main ally the United States, to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in its war to flush out Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
Fighting has intensified between Israeli forces and Hamas militants near and around hospitals in the enclave.
More than 11,000 people have been killed in five weeks of fighting, according to Gaza’s health officials.
The war is in response to an attack by Hamas fighters on southern Israel
In his strongest comments to date on the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire
But Mr Blinken reaffirmed US support for Israel’s campaign to ensure that Gaza can no longer be used “as a platform for launching terrorism”.
Separately, in a BBC interview published on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel must stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians.
France, he said, “clearly condemns” the “terrorist” actions of Hamas, but that while recognising Israel’s right to protect itself, “we do urge them to stop this bombing” in Gaza.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said world leaders should be condemning Hamas, and not Israel.
“These crimes that Hamas (is) committing today in Gaza will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York and anywhere in the world,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Israel has said that Hamas militants, who are holding as many as 240 hostages of different nationalities
Saudi Arabia will host an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh on Saturday, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said.
It added that “countries feel the need to unify efforts and come out with a unified collective position”.
Before leaving Teheran to attend the summit in Riyadh, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said: “Gaza is not an arena for words. It should be for action.”
“Today, the unity of the Islamic countries is very important,” he added.
Iran backs both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon.
Overcrowded hospitals hit by explosions, gunfire
Fighting intensified overnight into Saturday near Gaza City’s overcrowded hospitals
“Israel is now launching a war on Gaza City hospitals,” said Mr Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, director of Al Shifa hospital.
He said later that at least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Al-Buraq school in Gaza City, where people whose homes had been destroyed were sheltering.
Gaza officials said missiles landed in the courtyard of Al Shifa, the enclave’s biggest hospital, in the early hours of Friday.
The projectiles damaged the Indonesian Hospital and reportedly set fire to the Nasser Rantissi paediatric cancer hospital.
Israel’s military said later that a misfired projectile launched by Palestinian militants in Gaza had hit Al Shifa.
The hospitals, filled with displaced people as well as patients and medical staff, are in northern Gaza, where Israel says the Hamas militants are concentrated.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said the Hamas headquarters was in Al Shifa hospital’s basement.
This means the hospital could lose its protected status and become a legitimate target.
Israel says Hamas hides weapons in tunnels under hospitals, charges Hamas denies.
World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said health workers the group was in contact with at Al Shifa had been forced to leave the hospital in search of safety.
“Many of the thousands sheltering at the hospital are forced to evacuate due to security risks, while many still remain there,” Dr Tedros wrote on social media.
Displaced Palestinians taking shelter at Al Shifa hospital amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, on Nov 8.
PHOTO: REUTERS
‘No one is safe’
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Israel has bombed Shifa hospital buildings five times.
“One Palestinian was killed and several were wounded in the early morning attack,” he said by phone. Videos verified by Reuters showed scenes of panic and people covered in blood.
Israeli tanks have taken up positions around the Nasser Rantissi hospital as well as the Al-Quds hospital, medical staff said earlier.
The Palestinian Red Cross said Israeli forces were shooting at Al-Quds hospital, and there were violent clashes, with one person killed and 28 wounded, most of them children.
Israeli army spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht, said at a briefing that the army “does not fire on hospitals. If we see Hamas terrorists firing from hospitals we’ll do what we need to do. We’re aware of the sensitivity (of hospitals), but again, if we see Hamas terrorists, we’ll kill them”.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said Israel had created a task force to establish hospitals in southern Gaza.
On Oct 12, Israel ordered some 1.1 million people in Gaza to move south ahead of its ground invasion. REUTERS
