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 13, 2023, 3:36 PM EST

White House says Israel shares view that hospitals should be protected

The U.S. and Israel both "do not want to see firefights in hospitals," national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday as conditions at Gaza's hospitals worsen.

A Palestinian child cries next to his mother after they were rushed into Nasser hospital, following an Israeli strike, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip Nov. 13, 2023.
Mohammed Salem/Reuters

A Doctors Without Borders surgeon working at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital, said when an ambulance was sent outside the hospital gate to bring in patients, the ambulance was attacked.

The surgeon said the medical team has only agreed to leave Al-Shifa if patients are evacuated first.

Israeli military vehicles maneuver during the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip as seen in a handout picture released by the Israel Defense Forces on Nov. 13, 2023.
Israeli Defense Forces/via Reuters

"We want to see patients protected, we want to see hospitals protected. We have spoken with [the] Israeli government about this, and they have said they share that view," Sullivan said.

Sullivan also said the U.S. is continuing to work on getting fuel to hospitals and allowing evacuations from hospitals if they're in danger.

Nov 13, 2023, 2:47 PM EST

20 died at Al-Shifa Hospital over last 3 days: Gaza Ministry of Health

Twenty people, including babies, have died at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital, over the last three day, Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al-Jazeera on Monday.

Newborns are placed in bed after being taken off incubators in Gaza's Al Shifa hospital after power outage, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Gaza Nov. 12, 2023.
Reuters

About 1,500 patients and medical staff as well as about 6,000 to 7,000 displaced people sheltering at the hospital have had no medicine, water or food for days, Al-Qidra said.

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

Al-Qidra said medical staff have been unable to collect or bury decomposing corpses at the hospital courtyard amid constant gunfire and shelling by Israeli forces.

A Doctors Without Borders surgeon working at Al-Shifa Hospital said when an ambulance was sent outside the hospital gate to bring in patients, the ambulance was attacked.

"The medical team agreed to leave the hospital only if patients are evacuated first. We don’t want to leave our patients," the surgeon told Doctors Without Borders. "We need a guarantee that there is a safe corridor. ... If they give us guarantees and evacuate the patients first, we will evacuate."

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the situation "dire and perilous" on Sunday as he again called for a cease-fire.

Nov 13, 2023, 1:10 PM EST

559 foreign passport holders and Egyptians exited Gaza Monday

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened again on Monday, permitting 559 foreign passport holders as well as Egyptians to cross through to Egypt, a Rafah border crossing official said.

Four injured or sick Palestinians and five of their family members also crossed into Egypt, the official said.

A woman looks out of a bus window as Palestinians with Canadian passports are evacuated from Gaza on a bus through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, Nov. 12, 2023.
Hadeer Mahmoud/Reuters

Nov 13, 2023, 8:09 AM EST

'All of them will die,' doctor warns of premature babies at Gaza hospital

Doctors in the war-torn Gaza Strip are appealing for help from the international community as hospitals run out of life-saving supplies amid Israel's bombardment.

Dr. Hatem Daher, who runs the neo-natal department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in south Gaza, told ABC News that the situation there "is bad."

"There is the difficulty in getting drinking water and washing water, especially in our natal ICU because of the difficulty of getting the fuel for our generator," Daher said.

Daher noted that the situation at the strip's largest medical complex, Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, is even worse. Several doctors from Shifa are now working in Daher's hospital, he said.

"Our colleagues in Shifa Hospital describe a disaster there," Daher told ABC News. "No electricity, no oxygen, no drugs."

Daher warned that dozens of premature babies at Shifa are on the brink of death.

"Because they need incubator, they need electricity, they need oxygen, they will die. All of them," he said. "All of them will die. So, we call this emergency -- emergency call for all world, for all organizations -- WHO, UNICEF, Red Cross, anybody [who] can help these children."

-ABC News' Sami Zayara

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