November 13, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

The conditions inside al-Shifa hospital are “catastrophic” as essential units collapse, hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya told CNN.

Around 7,000 people are currently sheltering in the hospital, along with 1,500 patients and medical staff, said Abu Salmiya.

The hospital has asked the Israeli army for 600 liters of fuel every hour to power its generators, but the army has yet to respond, he added. 

On Sunday, the Israeli military said it put 300 liters of fuel at the entrance to the hospital complex, but claimed that Hamas had blocked the hospital from receiving it. 

Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV that staff had been too scared to go out to get it. 

“We told the Israeli army that the 300 liters of fuel they offered is not enough to operate the hospital for 30 minutes,” he told CNN.

“There is no more water, food, milk for children and babies .. the situation in the hospital is catastrophic,” Abu Salmiya said.

Al-Shifa Hospital falls under the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas. Israel claims that Hamas houses its headquarters below the hospital building. Hospital doctors and Hamas have denied that claim.

CNN also spoke to a reporter for the Al Arabiya network, Khader al Zaanoun, who is inside the hospital.

"Communication is very bad and almost impossible for us to report what is happening in the hospital and its yards, we barely have cell lines but no internet,” he said.

“No one can move or dare to go out of the hospital, the staff here are aware of many strikes that are happening around the hospital, we see smoke coming up from those strikes and we know that there are people in some of those buildings but ambulances do not make their way out of the hospital because… during the last days an ambulance was hit on its way out of the hospital.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said in recent days that there is intense fighting going on in the area around al-Shifa hospital.

On Sunday it said there was a corridor to the east of the hospital that could be used by people on foot, and ambulances. It’s unclear how many of the thousands of displaced people in the hospital compound have been able to use that corridor to leave.

Al Zaanoun said that people inside the hospital “are starving, there is no food or drinkable water, we barely get tap water for one hour a day.” 

The United Nations aid organization that operates in Gaza, UNRWA, says that one of its premises in Rafah in southern Gaza sustained significant damage after it was hit on Sunday by an Israeli naval strike.

There were no casualties, as UN international staff had left the building 90 minutes before the strike, UNRWA said in a statement Monday.

According to UNRWA, the coordinates of the premises an international staff guesthouse – were shared twice, including on November 10.

“This recent attack is yet another indication that nowhere in Gaza is safe. Not the north, not the middle areas and not the south. The disregard for the protection of civilian infrastructure including UN facilities, hospitals, schools, shelters and places of worship is testament to the level of horror that civilians in Gaza are living every day,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.  

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday that it "carried out a strike based on operational requirements, adjacent to a UN building" on Sunday. 

More than 60 of UNRWA's facilities, mostly schools sheltering thousands of civilians, had recorded collateral or direct damage. Around 70% of the damaged facilities were south of Wadi Gaza, in the middle and southern areas including Rafah and Khan Younis where Israel Defense Forces have instructed civilians in the north of Gaza and Gaza City to move.

This post was updated with the latest response from the Israel Defense Forces.

Premature babies at Gaza’s largest hospital are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive, the hospital director warned, as Israeli firepower continues to pound surrounding streets and remaining fuel reserves dry up, leaving the facility unable to function.

Staff at the Al-Shifa hospital were fighting to keep the newborns alive after oxygen supplies ran out and they had to move the babies by hand from the neonatal unit’s incubators to a different part of the hospital.

“I was with them a while ago. They are now exposed, because we have taken them out of the incubators. We wrap them in foil and put hot water next to them so that we can warm them,” the medical center’s director, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told Al-Araby TV on Sunday.

Images show several newborn babies who were taken off incubators at the hospital clustered helplessly together and placed in one bed.

The doctor said several children have died while in the intensive care unit and the nursery during the last day amid Israel’s continued bombardment and blockade of Gaza, an already impoverished and densely packed territory, following the October 7 attack on its territory by Hamas militants.

Some context: Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 11,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials, and a fuel blockade has resulted in a deepening humanitarian crisis as hospitals, water systems, bakeries and other services reliant on electricity shut down.

Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said the complex was “out of service” after repeatedly being targeted by Israeli fire.

An Israeli military spokesperson told CNN its forces were engaged in “ongoing intense fighting” against Hamas in the vicinity of the hospital complex, but denied firing at the northern Gaza medical center and has rejected suggestions the hospital is under siege.

The Israeli military has previously said Hamas is embedding itself in civilian infrastructure and that it will strike Hamas “wherever necessary.” It has also accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover — a charge doctors at Al-Shifa and the militant group deny.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians, injured or displaced by Israel’s escalating war against Hamas, have packed its wards, seeking shelter from the seemingly endless barrage of Israeli airstrikes.

Read more here.

Hospitals across Gaza are running out of electricity and supplies, with staff working in dire conditions while thousands of residents pack into medical centers, seeking shelter from a seemingly endless barrage of Israeli airstrikes.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah says it has lost contact with northern Gaza hospitals while Gaza's second-largest hospital — Al-Quds in Gaza City — is no longer operational, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

In Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, patients and staff are trapped inside due to fighting nearby, according to health officials and aid agencies. The hospital is rapidly running out of electricity, food and medical supplies, a senior official at the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza told CNN on Saturday.

Heavy fighting near the medical center has left it in a “catastrophic situation,” with patients and staff trapped inside, ambulances unable to collect the wounded and life-support systems without electricity, health officials in Gaza and aid agencies are reporting.

Israel said it opened an evacuation corridor outside Al-Shifa Sunday, but the International Committee of the Red Cross said no one had left through it. CNN cannot independently verify whether any people have been able to evacuate.

Here are more key developments in the Israel-Hamas war:

Israel is looking ahead to a long-term plan for Gaza and is discussing the issue with the United States, according to Ambassador Michael Herzog.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," the Israeli ambassador to the US said it’s the Israeli “position that Palestinians will have to govern themselves," but also indicated — echoing the Israeli Prime Minister's earlier remarks — that the government would not support a role for the Palestinian Authority in its current form.

The Palestinian Authority would have to undergo reform, Herzog said.

The ambassador said Israel is not interested in occupying or governing Gaza, adding that security is the main priority. 

Herzog claimed Israel is “very targeted” in its operation in Gaza.

Some context: More than 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive nearly a month ago, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the Palestinian enclave said last week.

It’s unclear how many combatants are included in the total. CNN cannot independently verify the numbers released by the ministry in Gaza, which is sealed off by Israel and mostly sealed by Egypt.

Israel is "doing everything we can around the clock" to get its more than 200 hostages released by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday.

Bash asked Netanyahu what he would say in regard to the thousands of Israelis, including the families of the hostages, that rallied this weekend, frustrated that they are not getting more information on their loved ones who were abducted by Hamas on October 7.

He responded, saying: "It's understandable. They're under tremendous distress. They're under — just, torture."

When asked whether he's doing enough, Netanyahu said: "We're doing everything we can around the clock, and I can't, you know, talk about it."

Netanyahu said "the entire world should join us" in attempting to free hostages, adding that the only ceasefire that will be considered "is one in which we have our hostages released."

Some context: Netanyahu has been under pressure for failing to anticipate the deadliest attack since Israel’s founding, which saw Hamas gunmen killing more than 1,200 people and taking more than 200 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

At a protest on Saturday, families of hostages called on Netanyahu and the government to do more to secure their release.

None of the operating rooms at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza are functioning due to lack of electricity, the medical center's director told Al-Araby TV on Sunday.

"The operating rooms are completely out of service, and now the wounded come to us and we cannot give them anything other than first aid,” Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya said.

The hospital director said staff were trying to keep premature babies at the hospital alive after oxygen ran out and they had to be moved from the neonatal unit’s incubators.

“I was with them a while ago. They are now exposed, because we have taken them out of the incubators. We wrap them in foil and put hot water next to them so that we can warm them,” Abu Salmiya said.  

The doctor said several children have died while in the intensive care unit and the nursery over the last day.

More background: Heavy fighting near Gaza’s largest hospital has left it in a “catastrophic situation,” with patients and staff trapped inside, ambulances unable to collect the wounded and life-support systems without electricity, health officials and aid agencies report.

The World Health Organization says Al-Shifa has been without power for three days.

“It's been three days without electricity, without water and with very poor internet, which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on the social media platform X.

Dispute over fuel offer: The Israeli military said it put 300 liters of fuel at the entrance to the Al-Shifa Hospital complex on Sunday, but that Hamas had blocked the hospital from receiving it. 

Abu Salmiya, the hospital director, told Al-Araby TV that Israeli officials had indeed called him to offer the fuel — which he said would provide power to run the generators for only 30 minutes — but that staff had been too scared to go get it. 

The Israel Defense Forces released a video it said showed soldiers delivering the jerry cans to a curbside location near the hospital entrance. It also released an audio recording, purportedly of a hospital official accusing a Hamas leader at the Health Ministry of refusing to allow it to be collected.

Abu Salmiya said it was the presence of Israeli tanks that prevented collection.

“Of course, my paramedic team was completely afraid to go out,” he said, adding, “We want every drop of fuel, but I told (the IDF) that it should be sent through the International Red Cross or through any international institution.” 

Hamas dismissed the allegations and said the Israeli fuel delivery was a propaganda stunt.

More than 800 foreign nationals passed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt on Sunday, an Egyptian border official told a journalist working for CNN, marking the largest number that has passed through the crossing in a single day since evacuations from the enclave began.

It is the first evacuation of foreign nationals since Thursday, when more than 300 left Gaza through the crossing, according to a border official.

More background: Located in Egypt’s north Sinai, the Rafah crossing is the sole border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. It falls along an 8-mile (12.8-kilometer) fence that separates Gaza from the Sinai desert.

As the only route in and out of Gaza that is not closed due to Israel's siege, Rafah has played a key role in efforts to get aid in and people out of the enclave.

CNN's Abbas Al Lawati, Mohammed Abdelbary and Rob Picheta contributed to this report.