Gaza's Biggest Hospital Struggles To Keep Patients Alive As Fighting Rages

1. Israel has vehemently denied reports that they fired on the biggest hospital in the Gaza Strip but said that their troops are fighting with Hamas operatives near the Al-Shifa.

2. "During the past hours, false information has been spread, that we are encircling Al-Shifa Hospital and striking it. These are false reports," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.

3. The statement came hours after Palestinian authorities said that two newborns had died at the hospital and dozens more in incubators were at risk due to lack of electricity as heavy fighting raged nearby. The gun battles and intense bombardment come as Israel presses deep into the besieged strip to destroy Hamas.  

4. Aid agencies and hospital staff have said that the situation is already "catastrophic" as there is an acute shortage of medicines and fuel. "The hospital is besieged, with no option to bring in the corpses and injured people sprawled outside. There is no movement in or out of the hospital," said Physicians for Human Rights Israel, citing doctors at Al-Shifa.

5. Describing the current situation, a person at the hospital told AFP, "Shooting is never stopping, airstrikes are unabated as well as artillery shells. There are dozens of bodies around the complex that nobody can reach."

6. Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month.

7. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since Oct. 7, around 40 per cent of them children.

8. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that his country does not plan to reoccupy Gaza. "We don't seek to govern Gaza. We don't seek to occupy it, but we seek to give it and us a better future," Netanyahu said.

9. The conflict has stoked regional tensions, with deadly cross-border exchanges intensifying between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Muslim, and Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of self-defence.

10. The war has also sparked protests around the globe. At least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched in London on Saturday and police arrested over 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter-protesters ambushing the rally. Over 20,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels.

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