ABIR AHMAR
November 17, 2023
DUBAI (Reuters) - A doctor at the Gaza Strip's Al Shifa hospital said on Friday Israeli forces had "found nothing" during searches of the hospital complex, and that food and water were running out.
Doctor Ahmed El Mokhallalati told Reuters by telephone that despite the "difficult" conditions at the hospital, no babies had died there since Israeli troops entered it on Wednesday.
Israel says Hamas has a command centre underneath the hospital, an assertion the Palestinian militant group denies. Reuters has been unable to verify the situation at the hospital independently.
"It’s a totally terrifying situation, here the Israeli tanks and the Israeli troops have been moving within the hospital area, all over the hospital," said Mokhallalati, a surgeon born in Ireland who trained in Cairo and practiced in London.
"The situation is totally difficult. They are shooting all the time, all the areas."
The Israeli military said on Thursday it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at the Al Shifa hospital complex. It also made public videos and photographs to support its statement.
Speaking in English, Mokhallalati said: "They have found nothing. They have found no single resistance. No single gunshot, against them within the hospital area."
The hospital, packed with patients and displaced people and struggling to keep operating, has become a focus of global concern.
Mokhallalati said the Israeli military had provided some supplies since entering the hospital but that it was insufficient.
Doctor Ahmed El Mokhallalati told Reuters by telephone that despite the "difficult" conditions at the hospital, no babies had died there since Israeli troops entered it on Wednesday.
Israel says Hamas has a command centre underneath the hospital, an assertion the Palestinian militant group denies. Reuters has been unable to verify the situation at the hospital independently.
"It’s a totally terrifying situation, here the Israeli tanks and the Israeli troops have been moving within the hospital area, all over the hospital," said Mokhallalati, a surgeon born in Ireland who trained in Cairo and practiced in London.
"The situation is totally difficult. They are shooting all the time, all the areas."
The Israeli military said on Thursday it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at the Al Shifa hospital complex. It also made public videos and photographs to support its statement.
Speaking in English, Mokhallalati said: "They have found nothing. They have found no single resistance. No single gunshot, against them within the hospital area."
The hospital, packed with patients and displaced people and struggling to keep operating, has become a focus of global concern.
Mokhallalati said the Israeli military had provided some supplies since entering the hospital but that it was insufficient.
"What happened is that the people, we run out of food, we ran out of drinking water," Mokhallalati said. "And then, yesterday, they arranged some, just some food and water, which is very, very minimal, which doesn't cover, maybe 40% of the number of people around here."
Dr Mohamed Tabasha, head of the paediatric department at Al Shifa, said on Monday three newborn babies had died as problems mounted at the hospital, and that the 36 remaining newborns were at risk.
"As of yesterday they were 36, luckily no one has lost their lives," he said on Friday.
(Reporting by Abir Al Ahmar, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Hugh Lawson and Andrew Heavens)
Surgeon flees Gaza City's last functioning hospital after anaesthetics run out
NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI AND ABIR AHMAR
November 17, 2023
GAZA (Reuters) -Hundreds of patients desperately needed his help, but now there was nothing he could do.
With Al Ahli hospital shaking from Israeli tank fire and no more anaesthetics left to operate, British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta told his team it was time to leave the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City.
"It has been a living nightmare - leaving 500 wounded knowing that there's nothing left for you to be able to do for them, it's just the most heartbreaking thing I ever had to do," Abu Sitta told Reuters on Friday, a day after leaving the hospital and walking to Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
In a post on X, he wrote: "No longer able to provide surgeries at Ahli Hosp. The hospital is now effectively a first aid station. Hundreds of wounded now at hospital with no access to surgery. They will die from their wounds."
Israel has ordered the entire northern half of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, to be evacuated as it presses its campaign to wipe out the Hamas group that governs the territory. All northern hospitals have effectively ceased functioning.
Gaza's health ministry said that as of Nov. 16 only nine of the enclave's 35 hospitals were functioning even partially.
Earlier this week, it put the confirmed Palestinian death toll at over 11,500, including at least 4,700 children, but has said communications blackouts throughout the territory have made it impossible to provide regular updates.
Gaza hospitals have been overwhelmed and short of supplies since Israeli forces began their campaign to wipe out Hamas following the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which Israel said killed about 1,200 people.
"Al Ahli was completely inundated with wounded. And we were operating all through the night (on Wednesday)," Abu Sitta said in an internet call. "And by the early hours (of Thursday)... we realised that we have basically run out of medication for the anaesthetic machines and we had to stop the operating room."
"INUNDATED WITH WOUNDED"
Abu Sitta said he and his team had been particularly busy in the past weeks week treating patients after an Israeli air strike on a nearby mosque, and after Israeli forces surrounded and then entered Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa.
Abu Sitta said a message had been received at Al Ahli hospital saying it had been surrounded by Israeli tanks.
Reuters could not immediately verify the situation at and around Al Ahli. Israel's military says Hamas has tunnels and command centres beneath and adjacent to some hospitals, a charge Hamas denies.
Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said on Friday that no hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack were being held at hospitals but were taken to care centres for treatment due to the seriousness of their condition and to save their lives.
On the five-hour walk from Al Ahli to the refugee camp, Abu Sitta said he saw "scenes of destruction" and bodies lying on the street.
He said patients needing treatment remained at Al Ahli, and that another hospital in northern Gaza had been unable to take them.
"Basically, the whole of northern Gaza now has no functioning hospital," he said.
His immediate plan is to rest.
"We've been operating non-stop for the last week since Al Shifa (was surrounded). I just made the decision that I needed to sleep, until I figure out what I wanted to do next," he said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and by Abir Al Ahmar in Dubai, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Peter Graff)
NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI AND ABIR AHMAR
November 17, 2023
GAZA (Reuters) -Hundreds of patients desperately needed his help, but now there was nothing he could do.
With Al Ahli hospital shaking from Israeli tank fire and no more anaesthetics left to operate, British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta told his team it was time to leave the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City.
"It has been a living nightmare - leaving 500 wounded knowing that there's nothing left for you to be able to do for them, it's just the most heartbreaking thing I ever had to do," Abu Sitta told Reuters on Friday, a day after leaving the hospital and walking to Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
In a post on X, he wrote: "No longer able to provide surgeries at Ahli Hosp. The hospital is now effectively a first aid station. Hundreds of wounded now at hospital with no access to surgery. They will die from their wounds."
Israel has ordered the entire northern half of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, to be evacuated as it presses its campaign to wipe out the Hamas group that governs the territory. All northern hospitals have effectively ceased functioning.
Gaza's health ministry said that as of Nov. 16 only nine of the enclave's 35 hospitals were functioning even partially.
Earlier this week, it put the confirmed Palestinian death toll at over 11,500, including at least 4,700 children, but has said communications blackouts throughout the territory have made it impossible to provide regular updates.
Gaza hospitals have been overwhelmed and short of supplies since Israeli forces began their campaign to wipe out Hamas following the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which Israel said killed about 1,200 people.
"Al Ahli was completely inundated with wounded. And we were operating all through the night (on Wednesday)," Abu Sitta said in an internet call. "And by the early hours (of Thursday)... we realised that we have basically run out of medication for the anaesthetic machines and we had to stop the operating room."
"INUNDATED WITH WOUNDED"
Abu Sitta said he and his team had been particularly busy in the past weeks week treating patients after an Israeli air strike on a nearby mosque, and after Israeli forces surrounded and then entered Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa.
Abu Sitta said a message had been received at Al Ahli hospital saying it had been surrounded by Israeli tanks.
Reuters could not immediately verify the situation at and around Al Ahli. Israel's military says Hamas has tunnels and command centres beneath and adjacent to some hospitals, a charge Hamas denies.
Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said on Friday that no hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack were being held at hospitals but were taken to care centres for treatment due to the seriousness of their condition and to save their lives.
On the five-hour walk from Al Ahli to the refugee camp, Abu Sitta said he saw "scenes of destruction" and bodies lying on the street.
He said patients needing treatment remained at Al Ahli, and that another hospital in northern Gaza had been unable to take them.
"Basically, the whole of northern Gaza now has no functioning hospital," he said.
His immediate plan is to rest.
"We've been operating non-stop for the last week since Al Shifa (was surrounded). I just made the decision that I needed to sleep, until I figure out what I wanted to do next," he said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and by Abir Al Ahmar in Dubai, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Peter Graff)
UN Human Rights chief calls for independent investigation into Al-Shifa hospital claims
ANDREW CAREY AND DAVID SHORTELL, CNN
November 17, 2023
The United Nations’ human rights chief has called on Israel to give his team access to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after Israel’s military released video of what it called a Hamas “operational tunnel shaft” in the complex’s grounds, a claim immediately rejected by the militant group and medical administrators as “ridiculous.”
The video, released on Thursday, shows a hole in the ground and what appears to be a shaft reinforced with concrete with exposed pipes and cabling.
At one point, the video, which has been geolocated by CNN, tilts up to reveal one of the hospital’s main buildings about 30 meters away from the hole.
The video does not show the inside of the shaft.
Israel has been under significant international pressure to prove its claims about Hamas’s supposed infiltration of the hospital. CNN cannot independently verify the claim by Israel that the image is of a Hamas tunnel.
In a televised briefing later Thursday, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said army engineers were still working to expose the tunnel infrastructure.
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on Israel to grant independent investigators access to Gaza to probe the competing claims.
“This is precisely where you need an independent international investigation, because we have different narratives,” said Türk on Thursday. “You cannot use … hospitals, for any military purposes. But you also cannot attack a hospital in the absence of clear evidence.”
The video released by the IDF shows what Israel claims is an 'operational tunnel shaft' in the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital complex. - IDF
The release of the video came as Israeli troops continued to conduct what an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman called “very specific, contained operations” both “inside and in the vicinity of the hospital complex.”
Israel has been bombarding Gaza, an impoverished and densely packed territory, since the deadly October 7 attack on its territory by Hamas militants.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 11,470 people in Gaza, 4,707 of them children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said Thursday, citing medical sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
The actions of both Israel and Hamas since the militant group’s massacre of an estimated 1,200 people on October 7 must be investigated, Türk said.
“What Hamas did – the horrific killing of civilians, the fact that they took hostages – are clear violations of the law. The fact that we have seen a collective punishment by Israel of Gaza, by cutting off supplies, of medical necessities, of food, of electricity, of water, is also [a] very serious matter under international humanitarian law,” said Türk.
“So, indeed, there are issues that we all have to look into because they are very serious. And they require answers. And they require accountability,” he added.
Türk said hospitals had special protection at all time under humanitarian law.
“When it comes to hospitals to medical facilities, to medical personnel, there needs to be special protection for them because, of course, hospitals provide life-saving services. There needs to be effective communication when it comes to evacuations, for example, and there needs to be special provision made for the wounded and the injured to be cared for,” said Türk.
Israel and the United States have accused Hamas of operating what they claim is a command center under the hospital in Gaza and Israeli is under pressure to uncover evidence of the sort of multi-layered network of tunnels and chambers that officials have said lies beneath the hospital.
The Hamas-run government media office released a statement calling Israel’s claim about the tunnel shaft a “ridiculous scenario.” It accused Israel of pushing “false scenarios, fabricated narratives, and distorted information” about the hospital.
“It is a failed attempt to escape future accountability and legal pursuit,” the Hamas statement said.
“The Palestinian Ministry of Health has repeatedly requested dozens of times (for) all institutions, organizations, international bodies, and relevant parties to form technical teams to visit and inspect all hospitals, in order to refute the false incitement narrative,” it added.
The release of the latest video came as Israel also said that it had found the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old grandmother who was kidnapped from a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip during the attack by Hamas militants on October 7.
Friday morning the IDF announced it had recovered the body of a second Israeli hostage, 19-year old Noa Marciano, a corporal in the Israel Defense Forces.
IDF statements said both bodies were found in what were described as “structures” near the Shifa hospital, though it is not known if the bodies were found together, and the precise circumstances surrounding the deaths of both women has not been made clear.
Israeli forces launched a raid on Al-Shifa early Wednesday and soon after released images showing firearms, body armor, and a laptop that it said contained incriminating material recovered from the hospital.
On Thursday, the IDF also claimed to have found a booby-trapped car in the hospital complex containing a large amount of weapons and ammunition.
The IDF on Thursday released an image of what it said were weapons recovered from inside Al-Shifa hospital. - IDF
Thousands of medical personnel, patients, and displaced people remained inside Al-Shifa Thursday amid conditions that doctors have called “catastrophic,” with food, water, and medical supplies exhausted.
The hospital, the largest in Gaza, has run out of fuel and is no longer considered operational. Earlier this week, doctors and journalists described desperate efforts to keep premature babies alive and limited procedures taking place by candlelight.
Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera Thursday that children were starving, and his medical staff had been forced to make “harrowing” decisions such as amputating patients’ limbs to prevent the spread of infection from untreated wounds.
Abu Salmiya reported the death of a kidney patient, with four others on the brink of death due to critical conditions and the absence of dialysis for days. He accused Israel of besieging the hospital, sabotaging sections, and spending the last 48 hours freely roaming within its premises.
Al-Rantisi Hospital claims
In another announcement, the IDF’s Hagari said Thursday that soldiers had also unearthed a tunnel at the Al-Rantisi children’s hospital in northern Gaza.
A CNN team embedded with the IDF on Monday inside that hospital was shown guns and explosives in a basement that Hagari termed an “armory.”
CNN was also shown a shaft, about 200 meters away from Al-Rantisi, which Hagari claimed was located next to a Hamas commander’s house and a school. The IDF said it was working to determine if there was a connection between that tunnel entrance and the hospital.
But Mohammed Zarqout, a senior health official in the Hamas-run enclave, told CNN that the basement at Al-Rantisi had been used as a shelter for women and children – not to store Hamas weaponry and hold hostages. He also claimed the tunnel was “an electrical wire assembly point.”
CNN is unable to verify the claims by the IDF and Zarqout about Al-Rantisi hospital.
On Wednesday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reiterated previous statements from the White House saying the US had intelligence that Hamas was operating in Al-Shifa Hospital.
“I would say we are comfortable with our own intelligence assessment about the degree to which Hamas was and is using al-Shifa hospital as a command and control node and as a storage facility underneath. We’re very comfortable with our own intelligence assessment for that,” Kirby said.
ANDREW CAREY AND DAVID SHORTELL, CNN
November 17, 2023
The United Nations’ human rights chief has called on Israel to give his team access to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after Israel’s military released video of what it called a Hamas “operational tunnel shaft” in the complex’s grounds, a claim immediately rejected by the militant group and medical administrators as “ridiculous.”
The video, released on Thursday, shows a hole in the ground and what appears to be a shaft reinforced with concrete with exposed pipes and cabling.
At one point, the video, which has been geolocated by CNN, tilts up to reveal one of the hospital’s main buildings about 30 meters away from the hole.
The video does not show the inside of the shaft.
Israel has been under significant international pressure to prove its claims about Hamas’s supposed infiltration of the hospital. CNN cannot independently verify the claim by Israel that the image is of a Hamas tunnel.
In a televised briefing later Thursday, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said army engineers were still working to expose the tunnel infrastructure.
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on Israel to grant independent investigators access to Gaza to probe the competing claims.
“This is precisely where you need an independent international investigation, because we have different narratives,” said Türk on Thursday. “You cannot use … hospitals, for any military purposes. But you also cannot attack a hospital in the absence of clear evidence.”
The video released by the IDF shows what Israel claims is an 'operational tunnel shaft' in the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital complex. - IDF
The release of the video came as Israeli troops continued to conduct what an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman called “very specific, contained operations” both “inside and in the vicinity of the hospital complex.”
Israel has been bombarding Gaza, an impoverished and densely packed territory, since the deadly October 7 attack on its territory by Hamas militants.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 11,470 people in Gaza, 4,707 of them children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said Thursday, citing medical sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
The actions of both Israel and Hamas since the militant group’s massacre of an estimated 1,200 people on October 7 must be investigated, Türk said.
“What Hamas did – the horrific killing of civilians, the fact that they took hostages – are clear violations of the law. The fact that we have seen a collective punishment by Israel of Gaza, by cutting off supplies, of medical necessities, of food, of electricity, of water, is also [a] very serious matter under international humanitarian law,” said Türk.
“So, indeed, there are issues that we all have to look into because they are very serious. And they require answers. And they require accountability,” he added.
Türk said hospitals had special protection at all time under humanitarian law.
“When it comes to hospitals to medical facilities, to medical personnel, there needs to be special protection for them because, of course, hospitals provide life-saving services. There needs to be effective communication when it comes to evacuations, for example, and there needs to be special provision made for the wounded and the injured to be cared for,” said Türk.
Israel and the United States have accused Hamas of operating what they claim is a command center under the hospital in Gaza and Israeli is under pressure to uncover evidence of the sort of multi-layered network of tunnels and chambers that officials have said lies beneath the hospital.
The Hamas-run government media office released a statement calling Israel’s claim about the tunnel shaft a “ridiculous scenario.” It accused Israel of pushing “false scenarios, fabricated narratives, and distorted information” about the hospital.
“It is a failed attempt to escape future accountability and legal pursuit,” the Hamas statement said.
“The Palestinian Ministry of Health has repeatedly requested dozens of times (for) all institutions, organizations, international bodies, and relevant parties to form technical teams to visit and inspect all hospitals, in order to refute the false incitement narrative,” it added.
The release of the latest video came as Israel also said that it had found the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old grandmother who was kidnapped from a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip during the attack by Hamas militants on October 7.
Friday morning the IDF announced it had recovered the body of a second Israeli hostage, 19-year old Noa Marciano, a corporal in the Israel Defense Forces.
IDF statements said both bodies were found in what were described as “structures” near the Shifa hospital, though it is not known if the bodies were found together, and the precise circumstances surrounding the deaths of both women has not been made clear.
Israeli forces launched a raid on Al-Shifa early Wednesday and soon after released images showing firearms, body armor, and a laptop that it said contained incriminating material recovered from the hospital.
On Thursday, the IDF also claimed to have found a booby-trapped car in the hospital complex containing a large amount of weapons and ammunition.
The IDF on Thursday released an image of what it said were weapons recovered from inside Al-Shifa hospital. - IDF
Thousands of medical personnel, patients, and displaced people remained inside Al-Shifa Thursday amid conditions that doctors have called “catastrophic,” with food, water, and medical supplies exhausted.
The hospital, the largest in Gaza, has run out of fuel and is no longer considered operational. Earlier this week, doctors and journalists described desperate efforts to keep premature babies alive and limited procedures taking place by candlelight.
Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera Thursday that children were starving, and his medical staff had been forced to make “harrowing” decisions such as amputating patients’ limbs to prevent the spread of infection from untreated wounds.
Abu Salmiya reported the death of a kidney patient, with four others on the brink of death due to critical conditions and the absence of dialysis for days. He accused Israel of besieging the hospital, sabotaging sections, and spending the last 48 hours freely roaming within its premises.
Al-Rantisi Hospital claims
In another announcement, the IDF’s Hagari said Thursday that soldiers had also unearthed a tunnel at the Al-Rantisi children’s hospital in northern Gaza.
A CNN team embedded with the IDF on Monday inside that hospital was shown guns and explosives in a basement that Hagari termed an “armory.”
CNN was also shown a shaft, about 200 meters away from Al-Rantisi, which Hagari claimed was located next to a Hamas commander’s house and a school. The IDF said it was working to determine if there was a connection between that tunnel entrance and the hospital.
But Mohammed Zarqout, a senior health official in the Hamas-run enclave, told CNN that the basement at Al-Rantisi had been used as a shelter for women and children – not to store Hamas weaponry and hold hostages. He also claimed the tunnel was “an electrical wire assembly point.”
CNN is unable to verify the claims by the IDF and Zarqout about Al-Rantisi hospital.
On Wednesday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reiterated previous statements from the White House saying the US had intelligence that Hamas was operating in Al-Shifa Hospital.
“I would say we are comfortable with our own intelligence assessment about the degree to which Hamas was and is using al-Shifa hospital as a command and control node and as a storage facility underneath. We’re very comfortable with our own intelligence assessment for that,” Kirby said.
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