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

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

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.

Click here for updates from previous days.


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.


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Israel claims to have evidence of Hamas headquarters at hospital

Israeli military officials brought several journalists, including ABC's Matt Gutman, into the Al-Rantisi Hospital inside Gaza, which had been hit with artillery.

The hospital, Gaza's sole children's hospital, was allegedly a Hamas command center, Israel’s chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who led the tour, claimed.

The hospital was surrounded by Israeli tanks from Thursday into Friday, the director of Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital said on Friday.

Inside the basement of the hospital, which officials said has been evacuated, were abandoned AK-47s, grenades and what Hagari said were suicide vests. In another room of the basement was a chair where Hagari claims a hostage was kept.

The spokesperson said the Israeli military was set to detonate the grenades and vests they claim they found inside and a forensic team was going to probe the hospital for more evidence.

The tour came after the hospital's resources deteriorated due to nearby attacks according to UNICEF.

The hospital’s operations almost ceased between Thursday and Friday, according to UNICEF.

By Friday, Al-Rantisi Hospital had only a small generator powering the intensive care and neonatal intensive care units, UNICEF said.

-ABC News' Matt Gutman


US intelligence on Hamas operations under Al-Shifa Hospital supports Israeli claims: Sources

While the White House is emphasizing the need to protect civilians in and around Gaza’s hospitals, two administration officials say the U.S. has intelligence supporting Israel’s assessment that Hamas is using Al-Shifa Hospital to shelter a command center under the medical complex, further complicating the situation on the ground.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to weigh in on Hamas’ operations surrounding Al-Shifa specifically, and underscored that regardless of the terror group's activities, hospitals were still serving vital civilian needs and must be safeguarded.

Miller also stressed that Hamas bore responsibility for the suffering at hospitals.

“We would love to see Hamas vacate the hospitals it's using [as] command posts immediately," he said. "We would love to see Hamas take some of the fuel reserves it's sitting on and use that to supply hospitals in northern Gaza. We would love to see Hamas have taken the fuel that Israel offered it yesterday that they declined for use at Al-Shifa Hospital."

-ABC News' Shannon Crawford


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 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.

"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.


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.

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.

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.


Al-Shifa doctors describe hospital evacuation

Patients and doctors evacuated the Al-Shifa hospital on Saturday, after the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claimed Israel forced them to leave. The IDF released a statement denying it ordered the evacuation, but in a Friday briefing another spokesperson said the IDF was urging anyone left in Al-Shifa hospital to leave and that it hoped it would take place in the "next few hours."

Doctors described their exodus from the hospital to ABC News, with Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati -- who is still in the hospital -- saying "all critical ICU patients have died. The situation is terrifying."

"Today early in morning people were forcefully evacuated from the hospital, with absolutely no plan of evacuation of the patients and the medical staff. Most of the civilians together with most of the staff left the hospital," Mokhallalati said.

Mokhallalati said there are around 300 patients, who cannot move, and less than 50 medical staff still in the hospital.

"There are still 33 premature babies in the hospital -- one baby died yesterday, and two babies were taken by their parents to evacuate with them. There is only one neonatologist and one nurse with them," he added. The Israelis have provided only three transport incubators for 33 babies. So, if they tell us 'you have to evacuate now,' I have no idea how to evacuate them."

Dr. Adnan Al-Barash, head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital, told ABC News that the "Israeli army forced us to leave the hospital at gunpoint."

"The path for us to walk was set out among the tanks, we had elderly, wounded… The scene was very tragic and sad," Al-Barash said.

"We went out between the tanks, and we could not get the wounded out on the broken roads and we could not move wheelchairs for the wounded," he added.

-ABC News' Dragana Jovanovic and Zoe Magee