IDF claims control of Hamas posts; hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed with patients dying due to power outages

JERUSALEM: Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed seizure of 11 “Hamas terrorist posts” in the past 24 hours, even as the Hamas health ministry officials equally claimed hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed with patients in the ICU dying due to power outages.

The Israeli military also claimed that it has obliterated an underground Hamas tunnel which was rigged with a vehicle laden with explosives set to go off that was neutralised in the attack.

On Friday, the IDF had said its 401st Brigade has “eliminated” about 150 militants since the beginning of its operations in northern Gaza, media reports said.

Israel’s expanded invasion that has successfully encircled Gaza, splitting the north from the south, has intensified dangerously, disrupting supplies and fuel for generators to run hospitals such as the biggest of them — Shifa Hospital, leading to the deaths of at least five people, including a premature baby, according to Medhat Abbas, a spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

In the entire Gaza, 20 of 36 hospitals are no longer functioning, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Abbas told a Qatar-based agency that some 1,500 patients remain at Shifa, with about 1,500 medical staff and between 15,000 and 20,000 displaced Palestinians who have sought shelter since they fled from their homes, media reports said.

The healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing after Israeli troops encircled the Palestinian territory’s largest hospital on Saturday, and international humanitarian groups have warned of a “point of no return”, NBC news said.

The Al Shifa Hospital has been hit several times, “including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries”, Doctors Without Borders said in a news release on Saturday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that “the healthcare system in Gaza has reached a point of no return”, and called for the protection of civilians and medical workers at hospitals, NBC reported from the ground.

“There is no electricity. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, have started to die,” Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Shifa, was quoted by the USA TODAY as saying.

Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, told CNN on Saturday that doctors are providing artificial ventilation by hand for 36 babies they are caring for in the neonatal ward.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday rejected calls to ensure Palestinian civilians are protected, saying that such a responsibility for their plight lies with Hamas.

He accused Hamas of preventing people from leaving when evacuation orders to empty out combat zones were issued by the IDF.

While the Israeli military alleged that Hamas is using the hospital complex as a cover for its hostile operations, Hamas and the hospital staff denied such claims that there were elaborate bunkers underneath the complex and that they were being used and that the civilians served as human shields for Hamas.

Latest update on the war: Saudi Arabia hosted Muslim and Arab leaders in Riyadh on Saturday to discuss a strategy for the situation in Gaza. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry reports more than 11,070 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, two-third of them women and children; the ministry made no differentiation between civilian and militant deaths. Israeli officials also updated the death toll, most of the killings occurred on October 7. Their estimate is 1,200 civilians and 41 soldiers have died in the conflict. Another 240 people remain as hostages with Hamas. (IANS)

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