A group of 28 prematurely born babies evacuated from Gaza’s biggest hospital were taken into Egypt for urgent treatment on Monday, while Palestinian health authorities said people were killed inside another Gaza hospital encircled by Israeli tanks.
The newborns had been in north Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, where several others died after their incubators were knocked out amid a collapse of medical services during Israel’s military assault on Gaza City.
Israeli forces seized Al-Shifa last week to search for what they said was a Hamas tunnel network built underneath. Hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced people left Al-Shifa on the weekend, with doctors saying they were ejected by troops and Israel saying the departures were voluntary.
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Live footage aired by Egypt’s Al Qahera TV showed medical staff carefully lifting tiny infants from inside an ambulance and placing them in mobile incubators, which were then wheeled across a car park towards other ambulances.
The babies had been transported on Sunday to a hospital in Rafah, on the southern border of Hamas-ruled Gaza, so their condition could be stabilized ahead of transfer to Egypt.
All of the evacuated babies were “fighting serious infections,” a World Health Organization spokesperson said. WHO said on Sunday that none of the infants were accompanied by family members, as Gaza’s Ministry of Health were unable to currently find close family members. Six health workers were evacuated along with the infants.
Eight infants have died since doctors at Al-Shifa originally raised an international alarm this month about 39 premature babies at risk from a lack of infection control, clean water and medicines in the neo-natal ward.
Featured VideoThe Israel Defence Forces released new video Sunday of what they described as a fortified tunnel dug by Palestinian militants under Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. CBC’s Irris Makler explains what the video purportedly shows and why its release is significant as Israel wages war against Hamas.
Communications down at encircled Gaza hospital
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by firing into the Indonesian Hospital complex encircled by Israeli tanks.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said the facility in the northeast Gaza town of Beit Lahia had been hit by artillery fire. Palestinian health officials said there were frantic efforts to evacuate civilians out of harm’s way.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), in response to a question about the hospital, said troops had fired back at fighters in the hospital while taking “numerous measures to minimize harm” to non-combatants.
“Overnight, terrorists opened fire from within the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza toward IDF troops operating outside the hospital,” the IDF told Reuters. “In response, IDF troops directly targeted the specific source of enemy fire. No shells were fired toward the hospital.”
Like all other health facilities in the northern half of Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital, set up in 2016 with funding from Indonesian organizations, has largely ceased operations but is still sheltering patients, staff and displaced residents.
Fuel and medicines have been running out across the entire enclave under Israel’s six-week-old siege.
Fighting in north, strikes reported in south
Witnesses on Monday reported bouts of heavy fighting between Hamas gunmen and Israeli forces trying to advance into north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, home to 100,000 people and, according to Israel, a significant militant stronghold.
Repeated Israeli bombardment of Jabalia, an urban extension of Gaza City that grew out of a camp for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, has killed scores of civilians, Palestinian medics say.
Hamas and local witnesses say militants are waging guerrilla-style warfare in pockets of the congested, urbanized north, including parts of Gaza City and the sprawling Jabalia and Beach refugee camps.
The armed wing of the militant group Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, said its fighters ambushed seven Israeli military vehicles during clashes in the northern areas of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Al-Saftawi and west of Jabalia. Reuters could not independently confirm the fighting.
At the other end of the Gaza Strip, health officials said at least 14 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli airstrikes on houses in the town of Rafah, near the border with Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans who fled the north of the enclave are sheltering in southern areas including Rafah.
The Israeli military issued a statement with video of airstrikes and troops going house-to-house in Gaza, saying they killed three Hamas company commanders and a squad of Palestinian fighters, without giving specific locations.
Hostage talks ongoing: Israeli ambassador
About 240 hostages were taken during a deadly cross-border rampage into Israel by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, which prompted Israel to invade the tiny Palestinian territory to wipe out the Islamist movement after several inconclusive wars since 2007.
Around 1,200 people, mostly civilians including several Canadians, were killed in the Hamas assault, according to Israeli tallies, the deadliest day in Israel’s 75-year history.
Since then, Gaza’s Hamas-run government said at least 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, by unrelenting Israeli bombardment.
Featured VideoRosemary Barton speaks with Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, about reports of a U.S.-brokered deal with Israel and Hamas, Canada’s relationship with Israel, ceasefire calls, ground operations in Gaza and efforts to free hostages.
Despite continued fighting, U.S. and Israeli officials said a Qatari-mediated deal to free some of the hostages held in the Palestinian enclave and pause fighting temporarily to enable aid deliveries to stricken civilians was edging closer.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, said in an interview on ABC’s This Week Israel was hopeful a significant number of hostages could be released by Hamas “in coming days.”
The United Nations says two thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been made homeless.
In Beijing, Arab and Muslim ministers joined international calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as their delegation visited major world capitals to push for an end to fighting and to allow humanitarian aid deliveries to stricken civilians.
Some aid has been getting in through the Rafah commercial crossing with Egypt where 40 trucks containing equipment for an Emirati field hospital were expected soon, according to a statement by Gaza’s General Authority for Crossings and Borders.