GAZA - Two more major hospitals in Gaza closed to new patients on Sunday, with staff saying that Israeli bombardment plus lack of fuel and medicine means more babies and others could die.

Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, medical staff said.

Israel says it is homing in on Hamas militants in the area and the hospitals should be evacuated.

Gaza’s largest and second largest hospitals, Al Shifa and Al-Quds, said they are suspending operations.

With more people killed and wounded daily but half of the territory’s hospitals now out of action, there are ever fewer places for the injured.

“My son was injured and there was not a single hospital I could take him to so he could get stitches,” said Mr Ahmed al-Kahlout. He was fleeing south in accordance with Israeli advice while fearing that nowhere in Gaza was safe.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has managed to restore communication with health professionals at Al Shifa, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday.

He said the situation is “dire and perilous” with constant gunfire and bombing exacerbating the already critical circumstances.

“Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly,” he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore."

WHO lost communication on Saturday and the Gaza health ministry said that operations at Al Shifa were suspended after it ran out of fuel.

“The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair,” the WHO chief said.

The president of Indonesia, home to the world’s biggest Muslim population, also called for a ceasefire ahead of meeting US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday.

“A ceasefire must be implemented soon, we also must accelerate and increase the amount of humanitarian aid, and we must begin peace negotiations,” President Joko Widodo said in a video recorded after he took part in an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh.

He said the world seemed “helpless” in the face of the suffering of the Palestinians.

The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit also urged the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing” in the Palestinian Territories.

A plastic surgeon in Al Shifa said bombing of the building housing incubators had forced them to line up premature babies on ordinary beds, using the little power available to turn the air-conditioning to warm.

“We are expecting to lose more of them day by day,” said Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati.

Israel says Hamas has placed command centres under and near the hospitals.

Hamas has denied using hospitals in this way.

EU condemnation

The European Union condemned Hamas for using “hospitals and civilians as human shields” in Gaza, while also urging Israel to show “maximum restraint” to protect civilians.

“These hostilities are severely impacting hospitals and taking a horrific toll on civilians and medical staff,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday in a statement.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Hamas was using hospitals and other civilian facilities to house fighters and weapons, which he said was a violation of the laws of war.

“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 Defense Forces on this,” Mr Sullivan told CBS News.

The current war brok out after the group’s Oct 7 attack on southern Israel. Israeli officials said around 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage.

Palestinian officials said more than 11,000 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then.

On Sunday, a Palestinian official briefed on talks over the release of hostages said Hamas had suspended the negotiations because of the way Israel had handled Al Shifa hospital.

There was no immediate comment from either Hamas or Israel.

Demands for ceasefire

The Israeli military response has prompted outrage in several cities across the world, where hundreds of thousands of people held protests demanding a ceasefire.

Israel’s supporters, including in Washington, say a ceasefire would allow Hamas to prepare for more attacks.

But the Biden administration has pushed Israel to allow pauses in the fighting for civilians to flee and for aid to enter.

Mr Biden, who spoke on Sunday with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani about developments in Gaza, agreed that all hostages held by Hamas must be released “without further delay”, the White House said in a statement.

The conflict has raised fears of a broader conflagration.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, has traded missile attacks with Israel.

Other Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have launched at least 40 separate drone and rocket attacks on US forces.

The United States carried out two air strikes in Syria against Iran-aligned groups on Sunday, a US defence official told Reuters, in what appeared to be the latest response to the attacks.

Babies at risk

Israel’s military said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies and had placed 300 litres of fuel at Shifa’s entrance on Saturday night.

But it said both those gestures had been blocked by Hamas.

Mr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Shifa, said reports of refusing to leave the diesel were “lies and slander”.

Mr Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said that of 45 babies in incubators at Al Shifa, three had already died.

Al Shifa was out of reach for the newly wounded, said Dr Mohammad Qandil, a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in south Gaza, who is in touch with colleagues there.

“Shifa hospital now isn’t working, no one is allowed in, nobody is allowed out,” he said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Quds hospital was also out of service, with staff struggling to care for those already there with little medicine, food and water.

“Al-Quds hospital has been cut off from the world in the last six to seven days. No way in, no way out,” said Mr Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Three UN agencies expressed horror at the situation in the hospitals.

The agencies said they had, in 36 days, registered at least 137 attacks on healthcare facilities.

These assaults resulted in 521 deaths and 686 injuries, including 16 dead and 38 wounded medics, the agencies said.

“The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair,” they said, saying half of Gaza’s hospitals were now closed.

With the humanitarian situation across Gaza worsening, 80 foreigners and several injured Palestinians crossed into Egypt in the first evacuations since Friday, four Egyptian security sources said.

Poland said 18 of them were its citizens. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News American citizens would be moved out of Gaza on Sunday.

Aid deliveries by truck and parachute

At least 80 aid trucks had also moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon, two of the sources said. Jordan said earlier it had air-dropped a second batch into a field hospital.

Very little aid has entered Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago.

Disease is spreading among evacuees packed into schools and other shelters and surviving on tiny amounts of food and water, international aid agencies say.

Speaking from inside Gaza City, Ms Jamila, 54, said she and her family could hear the roar of tanks nearby.

“During the day, people try to look for essential items such as bread and water, and at night people try to stay alive,” she said. “We hear explosions throughout the night, sometimes we can tell that some of these explosions are exchanges of fire between the resistance fighters and the Israeli forces.”

Palestinian health officials said 13 people had been killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday.

Residents reported increased fighting around Al-Shati refugee camp, by the coast in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said it had killed a number of militants there and called on civilians to use a four-hour pause to evacuate south. REUTERS