Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital suspends operations after running out of fuel, baby dies: Health Ministry
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GAZA - The spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry said that operations in the Al Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, were suspended on Saturday after it ran out of fuel.
“As a result, one newborn baby died inside the incubator,” Dr Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, told Reuters.
The Health Ministry said 39 babies are at risk of death amid a lack of oxygen and medicine.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Residents said Israeli forces had been fighting Hamas gunmen all night in and around Gaza City, where the hospital is located.
“The situation is worse than anyone can imagine. We are besieged inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex, and the occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside,” Dr Qidra said by telephone.
The Israeli military has said that Hamas militants who rampaged through southern Israel in October have placed command centres under Al Shifa hospital and other such facilities in Gaza, making them vulnerable to being considered military targets.
Hamas has denied using civilians as human shields.
Health officials say growing numbers of Israeli strikes on or near hospitals put patients, medical staff and thousands of evacuees who have taken shelter in and near their buildings, at risk.
“The occupation forces are firing on people moving inside the complex, which is limiting our ability to move from one department to another. Some people tried to leave the hospital, and they were fired at,” Dr Qidra said, adding that there was no electricity and no Internet.
Aid agency Doctors Without Borders quoted a surgeon in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, expressing concern at a “catastrophic situation” inside Al Shifa hospital.
The International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director for the near and Middle East, Mr Fabrizio Carboni, said the situation at the hospital “cannot continue like this”.
On Friday, Gaza officials had said missiles landed in a courtyard of Al Shifa, killing one person and wounding others.
Israel’s military said later that a misfired projectile launched by Palestinian militants in Gaza had hit Al Shifa.
Islamic-Arab summit
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Saturday that Israel bears responsibility for what he called “crimes committed against Palestinian people”. He also called for an end to the siege of the Gaza Strip.
Speaking during an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh, he also called for the immediate end of military operations and the release of hostages.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians are facing an “unmatched genocidal war”.
He called on the United States to pressure its ally, Israel, to stop its offensive.
Mr Abbas added that Palestinians needed international protection in the face of Israeli attacks.
Dozens of leaders, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, attended the summit.
As he headed to Riyadh on Saturday, Iran’s Mr Raisi said the time had come for action over the conflict rather than talk.
“Gaza is not an arena for words. It should be for action,” he said at Teheran airport before departing. “Today, the unity of the Islamic countries is very important,” he added.
But divisions remain among the nations of the Middle East and North Africa.
Foreign ministers from the region held an emergency meeting on Thursday to prepare for Saturday’s summit.
Some countries, led by Algeria, called to cut all diplomatic ties with Israel, two delegates told Reuters.
But a bloc of Arab countries, which have established diplomatic relations with Israel, pushed back, the delegates said. These countries stressed the need to keep channels open with the Israeli government.
Mounting pressure
Nevertheless, Israel is facing mounting international pressure to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in its war to flush out Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
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 on Oct 7
French President Emmanuel Macron
France, he said, “clearly condemns” the “terrorist” actions of Hamas.
But while recognising Israel’s right to protect itself, Mr Macron said “we do urge them to stop this bombing” in Gaza.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said world leaders should be condemning Hamas, 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.
Active front
Israel’s war against Hamas has raised concerns about a broader conflict in the region.
On Saturday, the head of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah said the front in the south against Israel would remain active.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his armed group had used new types of weapons and struck new targets in Israel in recent days.
It was Nasrallah’s second speech since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October.
In his first address earlier in November, he said there was a possibility of fighting on the Lebanese front turning into a full-fledged war.
Nasrallah said on Saturday there had been “an upgrade” in Hezbollah’s operations along its front with Israel.
“There has been a quantitative improvement in the number of operations, the size and the number of targets, as well as an increase in the type of weapons,” he said in a televised address.
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces at the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since Oct 8, with at least 70 of its fighters killed. Several civilians have also been killed.
But the tit-for-tat shelling has been largely restricted to the border and Hezbollah has mostly struck military targets.
The group was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982.
It is the spearhead of a Teheran-backed alliance hostile to Israel and the United States. REUTERS
