As Israeli troops continue to lay siege to Gaza’s medical facilities in its war against Hamas, Palestinian officials are reporting that multiple patients, including a premature baby, have died at the territory’s largest hospital complex.
On Saturday, Al-Shifa hospital was without power and fuel to run generators, leading to the death of the baby in an incubator, The New York Times reported.
According to CNN, three babies in a neonatal unit died, and doctors have been forced to use artificial respiration by hand while caring for 36 infants. Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, told the network that the facility housing 400 patients and about 20,000 displaced people was “surrounded from all four directions.”
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Meanwhile, on Friday, Israeli strikes damaged the maternity ward, a spokesman for the Hamas-run ministry said. The attacks come as 20 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are no longer functioning, according to the World Health Organization.
Gaza officials report that Al-Shifa is running low on food, water, and medical supplies, and that 100 bodies are wrapped in blankets within the complex.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), denied that the military was striking hospitals, arguing, “We are fighting terrorists who are choosing to fight from close to Shifa Hospital.”
The Times of Israel reported that Hagari insists that the IDF will permit patients and medical staff to evacuate and that it would help to remove babies that survive the night.
“We’re speaking directly and regularly with the hospital staff,” Hagari said. “The staff of Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed.”
In a press release, Doctors Without Borders warned that Gaza’s hospitals “have been under relentless bombardment over the past 24 hours” and quoted a text message from one of the aid group’s nurses: “We are being killed here, please do something.”
“Yesterday, Al-Shifa Hospital lost electrical power,” Doctors Without Borders said in its dispatch. “The ambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating. At the time of this writing, our staff are witnessing people being shot at as they attempt to flee the hospital.”
Al-Shifa’s director told the New York Times the facility was struggling to treat patients.
“Surgeries have had to stop,” Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya said. “Kidney dialysis has stopped and the neonatal unit is in a very dire situation. A baby has died because of lack of oxygen and electricity and heat.”
Without power and supplies, the Times reported, medical staff have claimed that surgeons operated by flashlight and performed amputations and brain operations without anesthesia.
Thousands of Palestinians sought shelter at the hospital, which the Israeli military claims is a command post for Hamas with underground bunkers—an assertion Hamas denies. Israeli authorities have also accused Hamas of holding civilians hostage inside hospitals. The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday claimed its aircraft had struck a Hamas commander “responsible for holding approximately 1,000 Gazan residents and patients hostage” at another hospital.
The commander, Ahmed Siam, was described as “another example of Hamas using civilians in Gaza as human shields.”
The conflict between Israel and Hamas has raged since Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
On Friday, the U.S. government expressed concern about the rising Palestinian death toll. Palestinian officials said more than 11,000 Gaza residents have been killed in air and artillery strikes since the war began.
Amid the devastation, international calls for a ceasefire are growing.
French president Emmanuel Macron said his country “clearly condemns” Hamas’ “terrorist” attacks but urged Israel to stop bombing civilians.
“These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded: “The crimes that Hamas [is] committing today in Gaza will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York and anywhere in the world.”
