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Israel-Gaza live updates: 3 premature babies die at Al-Shifa Hospital, doctor says

The hospital has been treating thousands of wounded people.

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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Surgeon at Al Shifa hospital gives update

Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the chief plastic surgeon at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, told ABC News that he is unwilling to leave his scores of burn patients and stayed behind with the some 2,000 people left in the hospital complex and about 500 patients.

Mokhallalati said the hospital is virtually cut off because no one can get in -- they only received two or three patients on Saturday.

But despite having hundreds of burn patients, Mokhallalati doesn’t have much to do because they have only enough power for a single outlet to work. They use it in a clinic which has become the only operating room, because the real ORs require more power.

Mokhallalati said only about 15-20% of the hospital staff remain.

He also said there are some 40 infants in the neonatal units and 60 or so patients on ventilators, who he and the hospital administrators say will die once the generator fuel runs out.

The Israeli military’s civil coordinator said in a video statement Saturday that the eastern exit to the hospital is open, and that people are free to leave. But the images the Israeli military released from inside Gaza show that much of Gaza City and it’s outlying neighborhoods are flattened.

-ABC News' Matt Gutman and Sohel Uddin


Hezbollah claims responsibility for 2 attacks on Israel

Hezbollah issued two statements claiming two attacks on Israel amid daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israel forces along Lebanon’s southern border.

For the first time since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the Israel Defense Forces said it carried-out a strike 40 km past its northern border into Lebanon, hitting a truck in Zahrani.

For now, this is contained within the the Blue Line, the UN-defined demarcation line between the two countries. As the fighting continues between Hamas and Israel and casualties mount up, the potential for escalation increases.

All of this is happening ahead of the commemoration of Hezbollah’s Martyr Day and another speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrullah, his second of the conflict.


ICRC chief surgeon in Gaza: 'Relentless' stream of burn victims

Dr. Tom Potokar, the International Committee of the Red Cross' chief surgeon who is currently working in the European Gaza Hospital, detailed the challenges they are facing in a phone interview with ABC News Live on Friday.

Potokar, who specializes in burn treatments, said they have seen "many, many" burn cases, adding that the number of burn patients is "relentless" and "not slowing down at all." The patients with burn injuries have been all ages, with the youngest they've seen just 4 months old, he said.

"A lot of them have burns involving the face as well, and the limbs," Potokar said. "These could be quite deep burns, as I say, so will lead to significant scarring potentially in the future if they actually survive."

Potokar, who has been a war surgeon in Gaza before, said the damage is "far, far" worse and in a "completely different stratosphere from how I've ever come across it before."

He said the way they are treating burns is "not ideal" under the current circumstances due to limited medical supplies.

"The way we're treating burns is really stepping back 40, 50 years," he said.

-ABC News' Josh Ascher, Kelly Johnstone, Casey McShea and Michelle Stoddart


IDF denies strike at Gaza hospital

The Israel Defense Forces denied carrying out a strike that hit an outpatient clinic at Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital Friday morning, stating it was a "misfired projectile launched by terrorist organizations inside the Gaza Strip."

There were two incidents at the hospital Friday morning, according to videos verified by ABC News. In one incident, a shell hit the refugee encampment outside of the hospital entrance. In the second incident, a strike hit the outpatient clinic where people were sheltering.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry blamed the Israeli military for the strike that hit the outpatient clinic.


'Every day is like eternity': Family of those believed to be held hostage by Hamas plead for help

Through tears and voices choked with raw emotion, people whose family members are believed to held hostage by Hamas pleaded for help during a Republican-led press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.

Doris Liber told reporters that her son, Guy Iluz, called her as Hamas unleashed its terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7 and she hasn't heard from him since.

"I'm here because it's been 30 days. Every day is like eternity to me," Liber, who holds joint Israeli-American citizenship, said. "We don't have a list of the hostages. We don't know their condition. I don't have anything. So I need your help."

She described the last time she spoke to her son.

"We hear shots in the background," she said. "He was shot in the arm and he wasn't able to stop the bleeding and he was trying to say his last words."

“I tried to, you know, tell him, ‘Guy I love you. Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. I'm going to end the call now. I'm going to send somebody now to get you,'" she continued. "And that's what I did. I hung up and I regret that since I didn't hear from him since."

Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz said he was awoken by his pregnant wife as the sirens began to sound in their kibbutz. They grabbed their 3-year-old daughter, huddled in a safe room and listened as their neighbors were slaughtered, he said. Soon his brother, Alon, called to report he was under attack, Lulu-Shamriz said.

“We don't know what is their condition," Lulu-Shamriz said. "This is a wake-up call not only for Israel, not only for the Jewish community. This is a wake-up call for all of you -- all of you here, all of America, all of Europe. You are next. You are next. And we should do everything that we can to stop these atrocities."

House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to "take action."

"We're resolved to help," the newly minted speaker said. "House Republicans want to do that."

-ABC News' John Parkinson and Lauren Peller