Tel Aviv, 12 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Heavy fighting near the Gaza Strip's main hospital has escalated fears about the fate of staff and patients as fast-depleting fuel supplies widen the humanitarian crisis among Palestinian civilians.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it lost contact with staff at the al-Shifa Hospital, the biggest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, which has now been caught up in Israel's ground offensive.

 

"As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area," the UN agency said on Sunday.

 

The WHO said that in the last two days the hospital in Gaza City had reportedly been "attacked multiple times, leaving several people dead and many others injured."

 

The agency noted that witnesses had seen tanks surrounding the hospital, where crowds of uninjured Palestinians have also taken shelter in the hope that a hospital would not come under fire.

 

"The intensive care unit suffered damage from bombardment, while areas of the hospital where displaced people were sheltering have also been damaged. An incubated patient reportedly died when electricity was at one point cut," the statement said.

 

The WHO said it was worried about the fate of hundreds of patients still at the hospital, including "babies on life support." Before contact was lost, the agency said the number of patients had been double the hospital's capacity.

 

Palestinian officials and doctors at the hospital said on Saturday that the hospital had come under Israeli fire several times.

 

Gaza as a whole has been under intense bombardment by Israel since the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, which left about 1,200 people in Israel dead. Israeli ground forces have now penetrated deep into Gaza.

 

The Israeli bombardment since October 7 has killed over 11,000 people according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

 

One doctor at al-Shifa who spoke with dpa said the power had been totally knocked out due to a lack a fuel and that many of the medical workers had fled to escape the fighting.

 

Israel's army accused Gaza's Hamas rulers of deliberately positioning themselves at the hospital, including setting up a command and control centre there.

 

It says it is not deliberately targeting the health facility, but going after the militants.

 

"We are targeting them and killing them," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, denying that Israeli troops were besieging al-Shifa. He said the military was "regularly" in contact with the hospital staff.

 

Hagari said the army - at the request of hospital staff - would help babies in the paediatric ward "get to a safer hospital."

 

UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children, said it was disturbed by "reports of premature babies dying in incubators."

 

With 700 beds, the hospital is the most important hospital complex in the Gaza Strip and provides emergency and surgical care.

 

Israel's army gave civilians a new hours-long window of opportunity to flee to the south of the Palestinian territory.

 

Israel has come under increasing pressure from even its staunchest of allies, like the United States, over the plight of civilians in Gaza.

 

While Israeli leaders continue to reject demands for a ceasefire, for several days now Israel has been giving civilians still trapped inside encircled Gaza City and other parts of the north the chance to get out.

 

The Israeli army said that on Sunday a safe corridor would open directly from al-Shifa Hospital.

 

Israel is telling Palestinians that southern Gaza will be safe for them, however witnesses and journalists have seen several Israeli airstrikes there, too. The army says these were exclusively targeted attacks on members of the Hamas terrorist organization.

 

In northern Israel, several civilians were injured in an attack using anti-tank missiles launched across the northern border from Lebanon, the Israeli military said. Israeli forces responded with artillery fire.

 

It was initially unclear how many people were injured.

 

Israeli media reported the injured were a team of electricians who were repairing infrastructure in the village of Dovev.

 

Hezbollah declared that its fighters had attacked Israeli "logistical troops" in the border region who were installing transmission masts as well as listening and spying equipment.

 

Since the beginning of the Gaza war on October 7, there have been daily confrontations between the Israeli army and the Iranian-back militant group Hezbollah on the border between Israel and Lebanon, raising fears a wider regional war could erupt.

 

Photo: EPA archive