The proximity of the exchanges of fire raises fears of the worst. Fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas has intensified around hospitals in the Gaza Strip where residents are seeking refuge from intense bombardment.
On the 36th day of the conflict, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil, half of the enclave's 36 hospitals, which have been bombed incessantly since 7 October, are "no longer functioning at all", according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Ambulances blocked
On Saturday morning, clouds of smoke rose in the sky over Gaza City and many gunshots could be heard, according to AFP footage. Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the territory, came under fire, according to its director. "Al-Shifa was targeted throughout the night by intense artillery fire, as were other hospitals in Gaza City," Mohammed Abu Salmiya said. The director said ambulances had been unable to pick up "dozens of dead" and "hundreds injured" because of "gunfire and projectiles".
Read alsoAl-Shifa in Gaza, a hospital at the epicenter of the war between Israel and Hamas
Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, said "one person was killed and many others were wounded in strikes on the intensive care building" of the facility on Saturday morning, a day after a bombing that killed 13 people at the same hospital complex, according to Hamas.
"The attacks on al-Shifa hospital have intensified dramatically in the last few hours," the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Saturday on X (formerly Twitter). "The situation inside is catastrophic." Quoted by MSF, a nurse at the facility, Maher Sharif, described a "scene of horror". "I saw dead bodies, including women and children," she said.
🔴UPDATE:
Over the last few hours, the attacks against Al-Shifa Hospital have dramatically intensified. Our staff at the hospital have reported a catastrophic situation inside just a few hours ago https://t.co/FSWagVTYF5.
— MSF International (@MSF) November 11, 2023
The Israeli military has not commented on the claims, but confirmed to the BBC that intense fighting was ongoing in the area of the hospital. On Friday, it said it would "kill" Hamas fighters "firing from hospitals" in Gaza and said in the evening that it had eliminated "about 150 terrorists." The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli snipers fired on al-Quds hospital on Friday.
"Stop targeting hospitals"
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday renewed his calls for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council, stressing that the Gaza Strip's health system was "on its knees." "The situation on the ground is impossible to describe: hospital corridors crammed with wounded, sick and dying, morgues overflowing, surgeries without anesthesia," he said.
"We call on the international community to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop targeting hospitals and ambulances," Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, urged on Saturday.
Israeli authorities regularly say that Hamas, a "terrorist organization" for Israel, the European Union and the United States, uses hospitals to carry out attacks or hide tunnels, which the movement denies.
Israel has agreed to make daily humanitarian "pauses" to allow civilians to flee to the more spared south of the territory via a "corridor". It was still used by 30,000 people on Friday despite "explosions" that killed people, according to the UN agency in charge of humanitarian coordination (OCHA).