According to the US President, hospitals in the Gaza Strip must be protected, Reuters reports.
Joe Biden expressed hope for “less intrusive” action from Israel as Israeli tanks approached the gates of the besieged enclave’s main hospital.
Israeli tanks have taken up positions outside Gaza City’s main medical centre, Al-Shifa Hospital. Israeli army officials say the tunnels are the headquarters of Hamas militants who use patients as shields. Hamas denies Israel’s accusations.
Israel launched a war against Hamas after the Palestinian group launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, which included an attack on southern Israel. According to Israel, some 1,200 people were killed in the attack and 240 were taken to Gaza as hostages.
Hamas representatives said they were ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in exchange for a five-day truce in the war. Israeli bombardment has killed more than 11,000 people, about 40 per cent of them children, according to Gaza’s medical services.
About two-thirds of Palestinian residents have been left homeless by a military campaign in which Israel ordered the evacuation of the northern half of Gaza.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra, who was at al-Shifa Hospital, said on Monday that 32 patients, including three newborns, had died over the past three days due to the blockade of the hospital in northern Gaza and lack of electricity.
The Israeli military said early Tuesday that it had “launched a humanitarian effort to coordinate the transfer of incubators” from Israel to al-Shifa, but clarified that none of the devices, often used to warm premature newborns, had been received by the hospital.
Hamas and al-Shifa have made no comment. At least 650 patients are still at Al-Shifa Hospital and are desperately trying to evacuate to another medical facility. In his first comments since the events of the weekend, including the deaths of patients at Al Shifa, Joe Biden said hospitals must be protected. Biden told reporters at the White House on Monday:
My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals and we remain in contact with the Israelis. Also there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that’s being negotiated, as well, with the Qataris … being engaged. So I remain somewhat hopeful but hospitals must be protected.
The Israeli military says Hamas is using the hospitals for military purposes. Also on Monday, the Israeli side released video and photos of weapons they believe the group stored in the basement of Rantisi Hospital, which specialises in cancer treatment.
The al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, posted an audio recording on its Telegram channel saying the group was willing to release up to 70 women and children as hostages in exchange for a five-day ceasefire, something Israel is unlikely to agree to. Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida said, saying Israel had asked for 100 to be freed:
We told the (Qatari) mediators that in a five-day truce, we can release 50 of them and the number could reach 70 due to the difficulty that the captives are held by different factions.
Israel, which has declared an all-out siege of the Gaza Strip, has rejected the ceasefire, saying Hamas would simply use it to regroup. But Israel has agreed to brief humanitarian “pauses” to allow food and other supplies to flow in and foreigners to flee.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that Washington “would like to see much longer pauses – days, not hours – in the context of hostage releases.”
The Washington Post, citing a senior Israeli official, reported Tuesday that Israel and Hamas are close to an agreement to release most of the abducted Israeli women and children while Israel releases Palestinian women and teenagers held in its prisons. The agreement could be announced within days if all the details are worked out.
There was also fighting on Monday at the second major hospital in northern Gaza, al-Quds, which has ceased functioning. The Palestinian Red Crescent said there was heavy shelling around the hospital and a convoy evacuating patients and staff was unable to get through.
Israel said it had killed “approximately 21 terrorists” in al-Quds in retaliatory fire after militants opened fire from the hospital entrance. Israel released a video it said showed men at the hospital gate, one of whom appeared to be carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The Israeli military and security services also said they had killed a number of Hamas commanders and officials over the past 24 hours, including Mohammed Khamis Dababash, who they said was the group’s former head of military intelligence.
Hamas media reported that an Israeli airstrike on the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed more than 30 people and wounded many. An Israeli military spokesman said the army was verifying the report of the Jabaliya strike.
