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The World Health Organization said Monday that Gaza’s main hospital, Al-Shif, is no longer functioning after three days without power.
In the south, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said it was unable to evacuate Al-Quds hospital, leaving medical staff and members without food or water.
President Joe Biden on Monday said that “my hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals.”
The Israel Defense Forces have said that Hamas is operating a command center and tunnels under Al-Shifa. Doctors and Hamas deny this.
A spokesman for the IDF said Israeli forces dropped off 300 liters of fuel outside the entrance to “gain time” and help save lives, but that Hamas ordered hospital staff to refuse.
The war, which was sparked by Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, has gone on for more than five weeks, with Israel launching aerial bombardments of Gaza and a ground operation in the enclave.
IDF has ‘responsibility’ to eliminate Hamas, but must ‘be mindful’ of hospitals, NSC spokesman John Kirby says
As the Israeli Defense Forces close in on the center of Gaza City, some Biden administration officials and congressional lawmakers want evidence of Israel’s claim that Hamas’ operation center is under Al-Shifa Hospital.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby joined Andrea Mitchell to discuss the matter.
“They have a legitimate right and a need — in fact, a responsibility — to go after the leadership of Hamas, but they also have to be mindful of civilian casualties, particularly when it comes to a hospital where you have patients who can’t evacuate on their own,” Kirby said.
“It’s hard to look at those pictures, specifically of those little children, and hard to think about young pediatric cancer patients whose lives are literally in the balance hour by hour, not able to move themselves out of harm’s way. And that’s why we’re going to continue to work with our Israeli counterparts to do everything we can to help make their movement safe and efficient and possible.”
U.N. says the fuel shortage is affecting aid delivery inside Gaza
The fuel crisis in Gaza is so dramatic that trucks filled with aid arriving through the Rafah crossing from Egypt won’t be unloaded starting tomorrow because there is no fuel for the forklifts or for vehicles to deliver the food, water and medicine they’re carrying to those in desperate need, a senior U.N. humanitarian official said.
Andrea De Domenico, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said “lives in Gaza are hanging by a thread due to the bleeding of fuel and medical supplies.” And he said that since Israeli troops arrived in Gaza City center five days ago, it has been too dangerous for the U.N. to coordinate any operation in the north.
De Domenico said in a video news conference with U.N. correspondents from east Jerusalem that the intensified fighting over the weekend around Al-Shifa hospital, the biggest in Gaza City, damaged critical infrastructure, including water tanks, oxygen stations and the cardiovascular facility in the maternity ward. Three nurses were reported killed, he said.
‘Nakba 2023’: Israel right-wing ministers’ comments add fuel to Palestinian fears
TEL AVIV — As Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip intensifies, so has the rhetoric from some members of the country’s government.
From raising the idea of dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza to ensuring that the current crisis results in a “Nakba 2023,” a number of right-wing ministers have made public comments that compound the fears of some about what Israel may be planning for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave.
“Some of that rhetoric can be seen as potentially genocidal from the way that it dehumanizes Palestinian civilians,” Dov Waxman, the director of UCLA’s Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, said in a phone interview. The suggestion of “flattening Gaza” with a nuclear bomb, he said, was particularly worrying.
U.N. experts have repeatedly warned that they believe “the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide,” and experts say comments like those are only compounding those fears.
Offer of 300 liters of fuel to Al-Shifa hospital was meant to 'gain time,' IDF says
The Israel military's offer of 300 liters of fuel to Al-Shifa in northern Gaza was meant to “gain time,” a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said tonight, but it was rejected.
Jerrycans with 300 liters of fuel were placed by the entrance of the hospital, the IDF said, where staff members say a lack of electricity has severely curtailed efforts.
“It wasn’t meant to make the hospital sustainable but just to gain more time, to help save more lives — to save lives of people in the hospital, specifically babies and children,” an IDF spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said on social media.
The World Health Organization said the hospital, the main one in Gaza, is no longer functioning.
The IDF said Hamas ordered hospital staff members not to take it.
Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at the hospital who is also the head of international cooperation at the Gaza Health Ministry, said 300 liters would not be enough to keep the hospital running for even a day.
“It does nothing. It means nothing, 300 liters of fuel. It will run our generators for just half an hour,” Abusada said. He said the hospital needs at least 9,000 to 10,000 liters of fuel to run essential services in the hospital per day.
Vivian Silver, peace activist thought to have been taken hostage, was killed on Oct. 7, officials say
Vivian Silver, a renowned Canadian Israeli peace activist who was believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas, was actually killed at her kibbutz on the day of the attack, officials said today.
Silver, 74, was last heard from around 11 a.m. Oct. 7 when she texted friends and family members that she was hiding in her house at the Be’eri kibbutz and could hear gunfire and people screaming.
As the days passed with no word from the authorities that her body had been found, Silver’s family suspected that she had been abducted by Hamas fighters.
But Israel’s consul general in Toronto, Idit Shamir, announced today that she has been confirmed dead, killed by Hamas at her kibbutz.
“Tragic news: Vivian Silver, the Canadian-Israeli peace activist previously thought to be taken hostage, has been confirmed dead, murdered by Hamas in Kibbutz Beeri,” Shamir posted on X. “Our hearts go out to her family and friends. May her memory be a blessing.”
It was not immediately clear how her remains were identified or why it took nearly five weeks.
Her son, Yonatan Zeigen, told CBC News that his mother’s remains had been found earlier at the kibbutz but had only just been identified. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Silver, who was born and raised in Winnipeg, moved to Israel in 1974. For nearly 50 years, she advocated for peace and worked to improve the plight of Palestinians.
Women Wage Peace, an organization where she worked, said on X that she was murdered in her home at the kibbutz.
“Our hearts are shattered,” the organization added.
102 U.N. relief agency staffers have been killed in Gaza
An additional staffer of the United Nations relief agency UNRWA has been killed in the last 24 hours, the organization said, bringing the number of its workers killed since the conflict began to 102.
“This is the highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations,” UNRWA said in a situation report today.
The staffer was killed in northern Gaza along with her family, said the organization, the full name of which is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Earlier today flags were lowered to half-staff at U.N. offices to mark the dead.
IDF says Hamas used hospital basement to house hostages
Israel’s military accused Hamas of using the basement of Rantisi hospital in Gaza to house hostages after the Oct. 7 attack, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said at a briefing today that included video of soldiers walking through the basement.
In a video recorded by the IDF, Hagari speaks to the camera in English and shows what he says are Hamas explosives, vests with explosives, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades, and a motorcycle with a bullet hole in it that the IDF believes was used in the Oct. 7 attack. Hagari says he believes a Hamas militant rode the motorcycle back to the hospital after the attack.
NBC News has not independently verified the video shown and provided by the IDF, nor has it verified what the items seen in the hospital were used for or whether the motorcycle was used on Oct. 7.
Hagari shows another room in the hospital, where the military presumes hostages were held. There is a baby bottle, diapers and a curtain hanging that the IDF says could be used to record hostage videos.
In the video, Hagari also points to a chart on the wall that he says shows where Hamas operatives put their names down for shifts to monitor hostages. An NBC News translation of the list includes days of the week, with an “X” marked on dates from Oct. 7 to Nov. 3. What appears to be a handwritten signature can be seen in the middle of the page. NBC News has not confirmed what the paper is or its purpose.
Speaking at the briefing, Hagari said the list marked the days from Oct. 7 and the name Hamas gave the operation.
“I don’t know exactly what it indicates. When did they leave this area? But you have to remember we evacuated the hospital with the patients,” Hagari said at the briefing. “They might have left with the patients. They might have ... ran away through tunnels, and we have signs that they had hostages with them. It’s still under investigation.”
Hamas’ government office issued a statement today accusing the IDF of lying to the public and described the video shown during the news conference as “contradictory and “clearly showing constructed, fabricated and misleading scenes.” The statement also accused the IDF of a misinformation campaign to justify attacking hospitals.
Prime Minister Netanyahu calls conflict ‘a war to the end’
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday visited soldiers and vowed that the war that he has declared against Hamas was not an “operation” against the terror group.
“This is neither an ‘operation’ nor a ‘round’ but a war to the end,” Netanyahu said.
“If we do not finish them, it will come back,” he said.
Netanyahu has vowed to crush Hamas after the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, and Israel’s military has rejected calls for a broad cease-fire as the civilian casualties have grown after Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, where Hamas operates and controls.
Israel’s military says it is striking Hamas military targets and seeks to limit civilian casualties.
Palestine Red Crescent says it was unable to evacuate Al-Quds
Medical staff members and patients are trapped in Al-Quds hospital without food or water after, it said, the Palestine Red Crescent Society was unable to evacuate to the south Gaza Strip today.
The organization said it had approval to move to its branch in Khan Younis today but was unable to do so after, it said, the IDF ordered its convoy to return.
"The decision was rationalized by referring to a security incident in the vicinity, despite the convoy undergoing thorough inspection," the PRCS said on X. "It is noteworthy that yesterday, displaced individuals were allowed to exit through a route specified by the occupation forces, under specific and challenging conditions."
In a written statement, the IDF said a "terrorist squad" had embedded itself among civilians at the entrance to the hospital and shot at soldiers and there was an exchange of fire.
Al-Amal Hospital, the organization's affiliate hospital in Khan Younis, also lost power to its sole generator today. There are 90 patients' lives at risk without the power, the PRCS said, and only a small backup generator with roughly a day's worth of fuel is helping to run its maternity ward and emergency lighting.
Constitutional rights group sues for injunction to stop U.S. support of Israel's seige on Gaza
The Center for Constitutional Rights is requesting a federal court order to stop the U.S. government's support of Israel's siege on Gaza, the group said in a statement today.
Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are named in the complaint, which was filed on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations and multiple individuals. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Biden, Blinken, and Austin, as outlined in the complaint, are sued in their official capacity for failing to prevent an unfolding genocide where they have influence over the State of Israel to do so, and directly abetting its development with weapons, funds, and diplomatic cover, in breach of duties enshrined in the Genocide Convention and customary international law," the group said.
Experts in genocide and the Holocaust included declarations that offered analysis of signs of potential genocide against Palestinians as part of the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California.