Deaths top 13,000 as premature babies evacuated from Gaza hospital
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Palestinian medics evacuated 31 premature babies from Gaza City's war-torn Al-Shifa hospital Sunday in a high-risk operation, the UN said, pledging to also move patients and staff who remain there as the death toll in Gaza Strip crossed 13,000 mark.
The hospital, Gaza's largest, has been described by the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) as a "death zone", after it sent a team to visit the facility on Saturday.
Mohammed Zaqut, director general of hospitals in Gaza, told AFP "all 31 premature babies in Al-Shifa hospital... have been evacuated" and said "preparations are under way" for them to enter Egypt.
The infants were taken in Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances to a hospital in southern Gaza for assessment and treatment, the WHO said in a statement, with 11 in critical condition.
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Doctors found that "all the babies are fighting serious infections due to lack of medical supplies and impossibility to continue infection control measures in Al-Shifa Hospital", it said.
None were accompanied by family members as the health ministry in Gaza had been unable to locate them, it added, and two babies had died at Al-Shifa while awaiting the transfer.
Al-Shifa hospital has become a focal point for Israeli operations, with the army claiming Hamas uses it as a base. Hamas, and medical staff, have denied the accusations.
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Israel is seeking to destroy the Hamas militants behind the unprecedented October 7 attacks that Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw around 240 people taken hostage.
The Hamas authorities say Israel's relentless military campaign has killed at least 13,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians and more than 5,500 of them children.
More than 250 patients and 20 health workers were still at Al-Shifa and plans were being made to evacuate them, the WHO statement said, but it would take "several days" to do so completely.
"Priority will be given to the 22 dialysis patients and 50 patients with spinal injuries," it added.
The WHO's initial visit to Al-Shifa came after hundreds fled the hospital on Saturday following what Al-Shifa's director said were Israeli army orders for it to be emptied.
Israel denied ordering the move.
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An AFP journalist at the scene saw crowds of sick, injured and displaced people walking towards the seafront, with the health ministry saying 120 patients had stayed behind, among them a number of premature babies.
"Many patients can not leave the hospital as they are in the ICU beds or the baby incubators," Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a doctor at the hospital, wrote Saturday on X, formerly Twitter.
Following its visit to Al-Shifa, the WHO said 291 patients and 25 health workers were still inside the hospital, figures issued several hours before the babies were evacuated.
Since November 11, when fuel supplies ran out at Al-Shifa, eight babies died due to the lack of electricity to run incubator units, the health ministry has said.
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- 'Tunnel' under Al-Shifa hospital -
The Israeli military on Sunday said it had uncovered a tunnel under Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital -- Gaza's largest -- that stretched 55-metres beneath the complex where troops have been conducting a major operation.
"IDF troops exposed a 55-meter-long terror tunnel 10 metres deep underneath the Shifa hospital complex," which ran under the hospital and ended at a blast door, an Israeli army statement said.
Hamas had denied Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital as a base.
- 13,000 deaths -
Gaza's Hamas government said Sunday the death toll from Israel's relentless aerial bombardment of the Palestinian territory, and fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants had reached 13,000 since hostilities began on October 7.
The Hamas government said more than 5,500 children were among the dead, alongside 3,500 women, with 30,000 more people wounded.
Its health ministry has previously said it can no longer give exact tolls as intense fighting has prevented bodies from being recovered.
BREAKING: ISRAEL AIRSTRIKES KILL 22 PALESTINIANS IN NUSEIRAT CAMP IN GAZA pic.twitter.com/6qcdqsTCo9
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) November 20, 2023
- 'Horrendous events' -
The level of violence ravaging Gaza in recent days is unfathomable, the UN rights chief said Sunday.
"The horrendous events of the past 48 hours in Gaza beggar belief," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.
In Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, the Israeli military "are dropping leaflets demanding residents go to unspecified 'recognised shelters', even as strikes take place across Gaza", he said.
The World Health Organization said it had led an assessment mission to Al-Shifa hospital -- Gaza's largest and the focal point of the war in past days -- and determined it was a "death zone", urging a full evacuation.
- Talks toward a hostage deal -
The prime minister of Qatar, a mediator which has helped broker talks to free Hamas' hostages in Gaza in return for a ceasefire, said on Sunday "the challenges that remain in the negotiations are very minor", but did not provide details or a timeline.
"I think that I'm now more confident that we are close enough to reach a deal that can bring the people safely back to their homes," said Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
US deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told NBC they were "closer than we have been in quite some time" to securing a deal. But he added on CBS: "The mantra that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed really does apply."
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‘Hostages footage’
Israel's military released security camera footage Sunday it said showed hostages being brought into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 7 after being kidnapped during Hamas's attacks on southern Israel.
Al-Shifa hospital has become a focal point for Israel's subsequent military operations in the Gaza Strip, with the army repeatedly saying Hamas uses it as a base, a claim the military has been under pressure to back up.
The militants and medical staff have denied that a command centre is under the hospital.
The first clip, which appears to be time-stamped 10:53 am on October 7, shows a man in shorts and a pale blue shirt being dragged through what looks like an entrance hall by five men, at least three of whom are armed.
In the second, seemingly time-stamped 10:55 am, an injured man in underwear is wheeled in on a gurney by seven men, at least four of them armed, as several men in blue hospital scrubs look on.
AFP was not immediately able to verify the footage.
In Gaza, it is cold and raining. Israel has bombed their houses to the ground. pic.twitter.com/jy6LUQs4Fg
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) November 19, 2023
"Here you can see Hamas taking a hostage inside... they're taking him inside the hospital," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, describing the two men as hostages from Nepal and Thailand.
"We have not yet located both of these hostages," he added. "We do not know where they are."
The CCTV footage appears to have been shot on the morning that Hamas gunmen began storming southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping some 240 others, according to Israeli authorities.
Since then, Israel has pounded Gaza relentlessly from the air, land and sea with officials in the Hamas-run territory saying 13,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians.