Israeli tanks surrounded a hospital in northern Gaza and at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when they fired into the complex, health officials said on Monday, as fighting raged amid signs of a possible lull in enmity.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the situation at the Indonesian Hospital, where health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza said 700 patients and staff were attacked by Israeli forces.
Palestinian news agency WAFA said a facility in the northeastern Gaza city of Beit Lahia had been hit by artillery fire.
Palestinian health officials said there was a rush to move civilians out of harm’s way.
Hospital staff denied that there were armed militants on the premises. Israel says its troops in Gaza are targeting “terror infrastructure” and accuses Hamas of waging war behind human shields, including in hospitals, which the Islamist group denies.
“We got information earlier that tanks are surrounding the Indonesian Hospital. Unfortunately…, communication there is almost cut off,” Nahed Abu Taaema, director of Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, told Reuters.
Israeli tanks and troops stormed into Gaza last month, seizing areas in the north and northwest and east around Gaza City. IDF smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, as seen from southern Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, on November 20, 2023. REUTERS
“We are very concerned about the plight of our colleagues and the plight of those injured and patients and people (refugees) who may still be sheltering there. No ambulance can reach them, and we fear that the injured will die,” said Abu Taeema.
Like all other health facilities in northern Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital, established in 2016 with funding from an Indonesian organization, has largely ceased operations but is still sheltering patients, staff and displaced residents.
Israel has ordered a full evacuation to the north, but thousands of civilians remain, many seeking shelter in hospitals.
The Israeli army operates in the Gaza Strip. via REUTERS
Fuel and medicine have run out across the region under Israel’s six-week siege.
Witnesses also reported fierce fighting between Hamas gunmen and Israeli forces trying to advance on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, 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 Palestinian refugee camp from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, has killed scores of civilians, Palestinian medics say.
An Israeli soldier rides a military vehicle during an Israeli military ground operation November 20, 2023. via REUTERS
At the other end of the Gaza Strip, health officials said at least 14 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli airstrikes on homes in the town of Rafah, near the Egyptian border. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans who fled from the north of the enclave took refuge in the south including Rafah.
The Israeli military released a statement with video of airstrikes and soldiers going door-to-door in Gaza, saying they killed three Hamas company commanders and a squad of Palestinian fighters, without giving a specific location.
Even as fighting continues, US and Israeli officials say a Qatar-brokered deal to free some hostages held in Palestinian territory and temporarily halt fighting to allow aid to be delivered to affected civilians is nearing.
An Israeli military Apache helicopter fires rockets as it flies over Gaza, as seen from southern Israel.REUTERS
Some 240 hostages were taken during a deadly cross-border attack into Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, which prompted Israel to attack the Palestinian enclave to wipe out the Islamist movement after several inconclusive wars since 2007.
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack, according to Israeli figures, the deadliest day in Israel’s 75-year history.
Since then, the Hamas-run government of Gaza says at least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, by continued Israeli bombardment.
The United Nations says two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced.
Israeli tanks and troops stormed into Gaza late last month and have since seized large areas in the north and northwest and east around Gaza City, the Israeli military said.
But Hamas and local witnesses say terrorists are waging a guerrilla-style war in pockets of the crowded, urbanized north, including parts of Gaza City and the sprawling Jabalia and Pantai refugee camps.
A screenshot of a video released by the Israeli military on November 19, 2023 shows security camera footage of what they say is Islamist militants Hamas bringing hostages from Israel into Shifa hospital on the day of the October 7 attack. .via REUTERS
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally, 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.
In Beijing, Arab and Islamic ministers joined international calls for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, as their delegation visited major world capitals to press for an end to the fighting and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to affected civilians.
Some aid has entered through Rafah’s commercial crossing with Egypt where 40 trucks containing equipment for the Emirate’s field hospitals are expected soon, according to a statement by the General Authority for the Gaza Strip and Borders.
Ground operations in the Gaza Strip continued, as the IDF and ISA killed three additional company commanders of the terrorist organization Hamas. IDF
HOPE FOR FLOOD RELEASE OFFERS
Despite ongoing fighting in Gaza, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Israel hoped a large number of hostages could be released by Hamas “in the next few days.”
On Sunday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a press conference in Doha that the main obstacles to a deal were now “very small”, with most of them “practical and logistical” remaining.
A White House official said the “very complicated, very sensitive” negotiations were making progress.
They coincided with Israel preparing to expand its offensive against Hamas into southern Gaza, marked by increased airstrikes on targets Israel sees as hotbeds of armed terrorists.
However, Israel’s main ally the United States warned on Sunday not to start combat operations in the south until military planners take into account the safety of Palestinian civilians.
Traumatized Gazans have been on the move since the start of the war, taking shelter in hospitals or trudging from north to south and, in some cases, back again, in a desperate attempt to stay out of the line of fire.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
