Israel-Gaza updates: IDF says it exposed Hamas tunnel under Shifa Hospital

World Health Organization officials visited the hospital in Gaza on Saturday.

ByABC NEWS
Last Updated: November 19, 2023, 11:27 AM EST

Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.

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Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 1, 6:03 am

What we know about the conflict

The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.

Nov 14, 2023, 2:42 PM EST

Fuel shortage stalls aid deliveries from Egypt into Gaza Strip, official says

A fuel shortage has stalled aid deliveries from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, a Rafah border crossing official told ABC News on Tuesday.

"No aid got in today because [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] trucks have no fuel," Wael Abu Omar, the Palestinian spokesman for the Rafah border crossing, said.

The UNRWA, which is responsible for receiving and distributing humanitarian aid coming from Egypt in Gaza, said Monday its trucks ran out of fuel and it would not be able to to receive aid coming through Rafah on Tuesday.

Tuesday marks the first day no aid trucks crossed into Gaza through Egypt since Oct. 21 amid the war.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said it received the last convoy of trucks from Egypt on Monday, including 155 trucks, following the UNRWA's announcement.

-ABC News' Ayat Al-Tawy

Nov 14, 2023, 12:28 PM EST

Mass grave dug inside Al-Shifa Hospital, official says

A mass grave has been dug inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza to bury dozens of corpses after Israeli forces banned the Red Cross from collecting the bodies, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry.

"There are approximately 100 corpses lying on the hospital courtyard that have rotted and decomposed," Al-Bursh told Al-Hadath TV on Tuesday, speaking from inside the hospital, the largest in Gaza. "We are walking on worms and we fear there will be an epidemic."

Patients and internally displaced people are pictured at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 10, 2023.
Khader Al Zanoun/AFP via Getty Images

Medical staff and people sheltering inside the medical complex have dug a "large hole" to bury the dead bodies, he said. Dozens of other bodies stored in refrigerators at the facility will also be buried in the mass grave, he said.

"Israel tanks are at the gates of the hospital and we are burying bodies under gunfire and with tanks around," Al-Bursh said.

Patients and medics at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Nov. 10, 2023.
AFP via Getty Images

The hospital ceased to function on Saturday after it ran out of fuel, and staff and health ministry officials inside say the facility has been under siege by Israeli forces for five days, with drones and snipers firing into it.

"We are trying to dig a mass grave to bury the martyrs inside Al-Shifa Hospital. Our efforts to remove the bodies of the martyrs from Al-Shifa complex have failed," said Dr. Youssef Abu Al-Rish, undersecretary of the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.

Israeli officials have said Hamas is operating a command center from under the hospital, something denied by Hamas.

-ABC News' Ayat Al-Tawy and Morgan Winsor

Nov 14, 2023, 11:31 AM EST

Humanitarian corridor in Gaza is less than 1.5 miles long, Israeli officer says

One of two humanitarian corridors that the Israeli military has temporarily opened in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday is less than 1.5 miles long, according to an executive officer of an Israeli battalion in charge of the route.

The officer told ABC News that the corridor is a 2-kilometer stretch of Salah al-Din, the main highway connecting the north and south of Gaza. He said his troops have come under sniper fire and that "there were casualties."

The Israeli military has distributed leaflets directing civilians in the north to routes that take them to the corridors, offering safe passage to evacuate to the south of the war-torn enclave within a designated window of time on Tuesday.

-ABC News' Matt Gutman, Becky Perlow and Juan Rentaria

Nov 14, 2023, 7:53 AM EST

IDF says it's offered to transfer incubators to Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday morning that it "is in the process of coordinating the transfer of incubators from a hospital in Israel to Gaza."

"We are doing everything we can to minimize harm to civilians, assist in evacuation, and facilitate the transfer of medical supplies and food," the IDF wrote in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "Our war is not with the people of Gaza."

The IDF also shared a video message from Shani Sasson, spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli defense body that handles Palestinian civil affairs.

"The pedantic ward at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City needs assistance. Israel is ready to assist," Sasson said in the video. "We made a formal offer to health officials in Gaza to transfer incubators into Gaza Strip to assist the paediatric ward of Shifa Hospital. Extensive offers are underway to insure that these incubators, right here behind me, can reach babies in Gaza without delay. Our war is against Hamas and not the people of Gaza."

It was unknown whether the process to transfer incubators was underway and there was no confirmation of Israel's offer from health officials or medical staff in the Gaza Strip. It was also unclear how the incubators would be powered at Gaza's hospitals with little to no electricity and fuel.

The announcement came amid worldwide calls to save dozens of premature newborn babies at Gaza's second-largest hospital.

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City had been struggling to run with limited fuel for days as doctors warn of its imminent collapse. On Friday, fighting in the area intensified and a strike hit the courtyard outside the hospital.

Three of the 39 babies that were being cared for in Al-Shifa's neonatal unit have died since their incubators stopped working on Saturday, according to the hospital's head of plastic surgery, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati. The hospital staff has been trying their best to look after them, swaddling them and using what power is left to heat the room they are in.

In recent days, several hospitals across Gaza said they have been under attack as heavy fighting occurs between Israeli troops and the militant group that rules the enclave, Hamas. The IDF alleges that Hamas has placed its command centers in tunnels under hospitals in Gaza and is deliberately sheltering behind Palestinian civilians -- claims which the group denies.

-ABC News' Zoe Magee, Jordana Miller and Morgan Winsor

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