ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
🔴 Live: Israel raids Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital, tells Hamas to surrender
Israeli forces raided Gaza’s largest hospital early Wednesday, where hundreds of patients, including newborns, have been stranded with dwindling supplies and no electricity, and urged Hamas to surrender. The Israeli army had surrounded Al Shifa hospital as part of its ground offensive against Hamas, claiming the militant group conceals military operations in the hospital complex. Follow our live blog for all the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
Issued on: 15/11/2023 – 03:03
Modified: 15/11/2023 – 06:46
1 min
A Palestinian child wounded in an Israeli strike is rushed into Nasser hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 14, 2023.
A Palestinian child wounded in an Israeli strike is rushed into Nasser hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 14, 2023. © Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, Reuters
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SUMMARY
The Israeli Defence Force said on X that it is “carrying out a precise and targeted operation” against Hamas in Al- Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The US said it has intelligence backing Israel’s claim that Hamas has a command centre under Al-Shifa Hospital. Hamas denies this accusation.
Hamas said that the US had effectively given a “green light” for Israel to raid the hospital. The group said it held Israel and US President Joe Biden fully responsible for the operation.
Thousands of people sleeping in tents in Gaza face a night of heavy rain.
The Hamas-run health ministry says the death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 11,320, including 4,630 children and 3,130 women.
Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the militants’ cross-border assault into Israel on October 7. Israel says Hamas killed 1,200 people in the rampage and took more than 240 hostage.
a few seconds ago
After several days of siege, Israeli forces storm Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital
Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza has become a symbol of the widespread suffering of Palestinian civilians during the war.
Israel accuses Hamas of using Palestinians as human shields and claims the hospital is being used by the group as a command and control centre, but Hamas denies these claims.
Despite repeated calls by rights groups to protect Al Shifa, Israeli troops stormed the hospital on Wednesday.
Earlier evacuation requests by the Israeli army had been put out, an “impossible task” according to the WHO.
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40 minutes ago
Israeli military says its forces have provided medical supplies to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza
Israel’s military announced in a post on X that “incubators, baby food and medical supplies provided by the IDF have successfully reached the hospital”.
This comes as Israeli forces raided the hospital early Wednesday morning. Hundreds of patients, including newborns, have been stranded at Al Shifa with dwindling supplies and no electricity.
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an hour ago
Israel-Hamas war: Al Shifa Hospital becomes focus of conflicting narratives
Fighting has reached Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The Israeli military says its forces have entered the medical buildings, which it says sit above Hamas’s underground headquarters in Gaza City. Hamas and hospital staff deny the claims and say Israeli forces have trapped patients and civilians inside in dire conditions.
Read our article on how the hospital has become a focal point of the war in Gaza.
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2 hours ago
Gaza health ministry says Israeli army in hospital basement
“The occupation army is now in the basement, and searching the basement. They are inside the complex, shooting and carrying out bombings,” Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces first raided the surgery and emergency departments, Mohammed Zaqout, the Gaza health ministry’s director of hospitals, told Al Jazeera.
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3 hours ago
UNSC expected to vote on Gaza resolution Wednesday
The UN Security Council may vote on a Malta-led draft resolution on Gaza on Wednesday, according to diplomats.
Malta put the resolution under silence procedure on Tuesday.
The resolution focuses on humanitarian help for children in the hope that all 15 members of the UNSC can agree on protections for the most vulnerable in the ongoing conflict.
It demands “‘urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip … for a sufficient number of days to enable … rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access for UN humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners”.
The resolution also calls for “urgent rescue and recovery efforts … for missing children in damaged and destroyed buildings … and the evacuation of sick or injured children and their caregivers”.
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4 hours ago
‘Hospitals and patients must be protected’: White House
Hospitals and the patients inside them “must be protected,” the White House said late Tuesday when asked about an operation by its ally Israel, which has sent troops into Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa.
The White House “won’t speak to the specifics of an ongoing Israeli military operation,” a spokesperson from the National Security Council said when asked about military move into Al-Shifa, where Israel says Palestinian militant group Hamas has a command center hidden beneath thousands of ailing and sheltering civilians.
“As we’ve said, we do not support striking a hospital from the air and we don’t want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people trying to get medical care they deserve are caught in the crossfire. Hospitals and patients must be protected,” the spokesperson continued.
The statement came after US President Joe Biden spoke with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu earlier Tuesday, apparently before the Israeli operation into Al-Shifa was announced.
The operation was not discussed during that call, which the White House said in an earlier statement had focused on efforts to free hostages held by Hamas.
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5 hours ago
White House does not support air strikes on a hospital, says spokesperson
The White House on Tuesday said it does not support striking a hospital from the air and does not want to see a firefight in a hospital after the Israeli military said it was carrying out a raid against Hamas at the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
“We do not support striking a hospital from the air and we don’t want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people trying to get medical care they deserve are caught in the crossfire,” said a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, who did not wish to be named.
“Hospitals and patients must be protected,” the spokesperson said.
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5 hours ago
Biden believes deal on Hamas hostages ‘going to happen’
US President Joe Biden said Tuesday he believes that a deal with Hamas to free the hostages the militants are holding in the Gaza Strip will happen, but did not offer specifics.
“I’ve been talking with people involved every single day. I believe it’s going to happen but I don’t want to get into detail,” Biden told reporters at the White House when asked about an eventual agreement.
When asked if he had a message for the families of those being held by the Palestinian militant group, he replied: “Hang in there. We’re coming.”
Nine Americans and a person with permanent US residency are among an estimated 240 people taken hostage by Hamas fighters last month when they crossed the border to stage the deadliest attack in Israeli history.
“I cannot look you in the eye and tell you how many of those hostages are still alive,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told a news conference on Monday.
Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, and the White House said the two “discussed at length ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, including many children and a number of Americans.”
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5 hours ago
Israeli military forces raid Gaza’s largest hospital in operation against Hamas
The Israeli military raided Gaza’s largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the facility, which has been the site of a standoff with the ruling militant group.
Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the Shifa Hospital. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, the military has refrained from entering.
In recent weeks, Israeli defense forces have publicly warned that such use of the hospital “jeopardizes its protected status under international law,” the military said. On Tuesday, military officials conveyed again to Gaza authorities that all military activity in the hospital must cease within 12 hours.
“Unfortunately, it did not,” the military said.
Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover.
Israeli military officials gave no further details but said they were taking steps to avoid harm to civilians.
The operation unfolded after the military seized broader control of northern Gaza on Tuesday, including capturing the territory’s legislature building and its police headquarters, in gains that carried high symbolic value in the country’s quest to crush Hamas.
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Key developments from Tuesday, November 14:
US President Biden said on Tuesday he is engaged in daily discussions to secure a release of hostages being held by Hamas and he believes it is going to happen.
A Hamas official said that Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip had put 25 of the besieged territory’s 35 hospitals out of use.
The Israeli army said it had captured parliament and other government institutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in the Palestinian territory.
The death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 11,320, including 4,630 children and 3,130 women.
At least 1,200 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Palestinian militants are holding nearly 240 hostages seized in the raid, including men, women, children and older adults. The military says 46 soldiers have been killed in ground operations in Gaza.
Our correspondent Claire Duhamel spent three hours embedded with the Israeli army in northern Gaza.
03:16
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the enclave, receives data from every hospital in the strip. Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every body arriving at a morgue. The ministry collects data from other sources also, including the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”. The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.
In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN’s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies.
For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
