Heavy fighting breaks out around another Gaza hospital after babies evacuated from Shifa

Source: Associated Press

Heavy fighting breaks out around another Gaza hospital after babies evacuated from Shifa

BY NAJIB JOBAIN AND SAMY MAGDY
Updated 4:09 AM EST, November 20, 2023

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Heavy fighting erupted Monday around a hospital in northern Gaza where thousands of patients and displaced people have been sheltering for weeks, as Israeli forces focus on clearing medical facilities that they say Hamas militants use for cover.

A shell struck the second floor of the Indonesian Hospital, killing at least 12 people, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza and a medical worker inside the facility. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The advance on the Indonesian Hospital came a day after the World Health Organization evacuated 31 premature babies from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory’s largest, where they were among more than 250 critically ill or wounded patients stranded there days after Israeli forces entered the compound.

The plight of Gaza’s hospitals is at the focus of a battle of narratives over the war’s brutal toll on Palestinian civilians, thousands of whom have been killed or buried in rubble since the six-week-old war was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-11-20-2023-b566adebfdf002569457ecc949c8c4b9