November 12, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Hostilities around Al-Shifa Hospital Saturday “have not stopped,” according to Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders.

“The ambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating,” the organization said in a statement.

A freelance journalist based at the hospital told CNN there were still dozens of bodies at the hospital awaiting burial, but that people feared going outside to bury them. 

Medics inside the hospital are working by candlelight, Sarsour said. Other resources are also getting scarce.

Some background: The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said the hospital was under "complete siege" Saturday, and that a floor of the complex's surgery building was heavily shelled. The ministry says three newborn babies died at the hospital after it "went out of service" due to heavy damage.

Israel’s army has said there is “ongoing intense fighting” around the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital, but denied claims it was firing at or laying siege to the complex.

It has also said it is in touch with the hospital director and willing to help people leave. Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday evening that the hospital staff has requested help evacuating babies from the pediatric department, and that the IDF "will provide the assistance needed" Sunday.

CNN has been unable to confirm whether anyone was able to leave the hospital complex over the course of the day.

The Israeli military has said it will help evacuate babies from the paediatric unit of Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital tomorrow. 

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a press briefing on Saturday: “The staff of the Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the pediatric department get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed.” 

Earlier on Saturday, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza said three newborn babies had died at the hospital after it went “out of service” amid intense fighting in the area.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that Israel's battle against Hamas would continue and ruled out a role for the current Palestinian Authority government once the war ends.

"With all our force, with all our might, we’ll continue until the victory," Netanyahu said in a televised speech.

Responding to questions about whether the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war, Netanyahu said there would be "full security control in Gaza, with the IDF’s ability to enter whenever we want, to kill terrorists who can re-appear."

"I can tell you what will not be - there will not be Hamas. Moreover, there will not be a civilian authority there that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, eliminate the state of Israel," he added.

"There will need to be a different thing, but in any case, with our security control."

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah gave his second speech since the Hamas-Israel war started via video link from an undisclosed location Saturday, in which he addressed the situation in Gaza and clashes on the Lebanon-Israel border.

Nasrallah called the situation unfolding in Gaza "big, exceptional and dangerous in this region and the world,” adding that what will emerge from the death and destruction in Gaza "will be generation after generation of resistance fighters."

“This painful event and these grave crimes are an expression of Israeli revenge. This is the spirit of a vicious revenge that have no moral or humanitarian or legal limits. It expresses the true nature of the entity (Israel),” he said. 

On clashes at the Israel-Lebanon border: Hezbollah’s strikes on Israeli territory have increased in number and employed more advanced weaponry over the last week of cross-border fire between Israel Defense Forces and the powerful, Iran-backed armed group, Nasrallah said in a speech Saturday.

Hezbollah has in recent days struck deeper into Israeli territory, Nasrallah said, marking an escalation in the month-long flareup, where the fighting has largely stuck to a 4-kilometer (about 2-mile) radius around the border.

He said Hezbollah used self-detonating, explosive-laden drones in an attack on Israeli positions for the first time in the paramilitary group’s history. (The Israeli military has acknowledged Hezbollah's use of an attack drone in at least one of the strikes claimed by the Lebanese armed group.)

Hezbollah has, also for the first time, fired Iran-made Burkan missiles, which have a payload of up to 500 kilograms (about 1,100 pounds), on Israeli positions, Nasrallah said. Hezbollah this week released video showing a large explosion caused by a Burkan missile.

Nasrallah accused Israel of hiding its casualty figures from Hezbollah's attacks on the border.

On the US: Nasrallah accused the US of “administering” the Israeli operation in Gaza and chastised it for supporting the continuation of Israel's operation in Gaza.

Nasrallah said “all pressure” to bring about a ceasefire should be directed toward the US. He praised militant actions against US positions in Iraq in recent weeks and said they would only “stop” if the US pushes for a ceasefire in Israel.

Hezbollah's chief described Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria as having created “supporting fronts” for Hamas in Gaza.

CNN reported earlier this month that the US intelligence community believes – for now – that Iran and its proxies are calibrating their response to Israel’s military intervention in Gaza to avoid direct conflict with Israel or the US while still exacting costs on its adversaries. But the US is also keenly aware that Iran does not maintain perfect control of its umbrella of proxies – in particular over Lebanese Hezbollah, the largest and most capable of the various groups. Hezbollah is an ally of Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on October 7, and has long positioned itself as fighting against Israel. US officials are deeply concerned that the group’s internal politics may cause Hezbollah to escalate simmering tensions.

Nasrallah's speech last Friday: In his first public, in-person speech since 2006 — when a monthlong war erupted between Lebanon and Israel — Nasrallah said "all scenarios" are possible on the Lebanon-Israel border, warning Israel against further escalation of its operations there. He also urged for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling it Hezbollah's first priority.

A huge pro-Palestinian demonstration took place in London as hundreds of thousands of people marched through the center of the city Saturday, according to a CNN team on the ground.

A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police told CNN that an estimated 300,000 people attended the rally.

There was heavy police presence in central London’s Hyde Park Corner as protesters chanted “free, free Palestine” and “ceasefire now.” They were also heard chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Police arrested dozens of counter-protesters in London who attempted to confront those taking part in the rally. The Metropolitan Police said the people were apprehended “to prevent a breach of the peace.”

Police said they had “faced aggression from counter-protesters” who stormed the area “in significant numbers” ahead of what could be the biggest march yet since the Israel-Hamas conflict began about a month ago.

Elsewhere in Europe, thousands of people in Brussels and Paris also attended pro-Palestinian demonstrations Saturday.

Meanwhile, in the US: A group of pro-Palestinian protesters on Saturday gathered near the street where President Joe Biden lives in Delaware to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

The crowd began forming at roughly 11 a.m. ET. Many carried Palestinian flags, and there were large cellophane balloons spelling out “ceasefire now.”

On Friday, about 2,000 people attended a demonstration in New York City, gathering in Columbus Circle before marching to the area around Times Square and eventually to Grand Central, where demonstrations temporarily closed access to the terminal.

CNN's Kevin Liptak contributed reporting to this post.

Dr. Mohammed Ghneim has not left his hospital in Gaza City in four weeks. He can’t remember the last time he slept or ate, and his blue scrubs are stained in the blood of patients who’ve died in his arms.

His voice cracks under the weight of the horrors he’s seen: fetuses pulled from the wombs of dying mothers, children with crushed lungs struggling to breathe, and his own colleagues – doctors, nurses and EMTs – transported to the hospital morgue in body bags.

“We are doing our best – this is why we haven’t left here for days – but the situation is very horrible. There’s no way to describe it in any language or with any words,” Ghneim told CNN in a voice message on November 7, as sounds of chaos and panic unfolded around him.

Ghneim is an emergency room doctor at Dar Al-Shifa, also known as Al-Shifa Hospital or Shifa, and is Arabic for “house of healing.” But at this hospital – the largest medical complex in Gaza – there’s far too much death.

Shifa is running dangerously low on clean water, medicine, supplies and fuel. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians, injured or displaced by Israel’s war against Hamas, continue to pack its wards, seeking shelter from the seemingly endless barrage of airstrikes.

Israeli forces on Saturday surrounded Shifa in all directions, threatening the health and safety of those inside, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed the hospital’s generator, Al-Bursh said, cutting electricity to the building, including life-saving equipment used by 39 infants in neonatal care. Three infants have already died, he added.

The Israeli military denied that the hospital is under siege, telling CNN it was engaged in “ongoing intense fighting” against Hamas in the vicinity of Shifa, but declined to comment further on its forces’ proximity to the complex because military activity was still underway. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover — a charge doctors at Shifa and the militant group deny.

Alarming scenes from inside Shifa, and other hospitals across Gaza, have sparked international calls for a ceasefire and more aid to be allowed to enter the territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, currently closed off to the world by Israel and Egypt.

Nonprofit medical groups across the United States are mobilizing to raise funds and ship medicine and supplies to failing hospitals before it’s too late. But with the situation in Gaza spiraling and few diplomatic or humanitarian solutions in sight, many worry the delay will result in more deaths.

“I want to say to the world, this is a humanitarian crisis, this is a genocide,” Ghneim pleaded from his crowded emergency room. “Please stop this.”

READ MORE: 'Please stop this'