Israel Denies Shifa Hospital 'Siege' As Medics Say People Are Trapped

Health officials in Gaza say Israel has laid siege to the territory's largest hospital, making it a deathtrap for the thousands of medics, patients and displaced people inside. Israel has denied the claims.

Israel has carried out airstrikes on the besieged territory since the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas.

The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since the war began, while about 2,700 have been reported missing or thought to be trapped or dead under rubble, The Associated Press reported.

On the Israeli side, at least 1,200 people have been killed, most of them in the Hamas attack, the AP reported, while 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of its ground offensive.

Hospitals in the main combat zone in northern Gaza have increasingly ended up in the firing line, with Palestinians and human rights groups accusing Israel of recklessly harming civilians seeking shelter.

"We are minutes away from imminent death," Al-Shifa hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera on Saturday. He said two premature babies had died after the hospital's last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, while another 37 babies were at risk of dying because there was no electricity.

"One member of a medical crew who tried to reach the incubator to lend a helping hand to the babies born inside was shot and killed," he said.

He also told the AP that Israeli troops were "shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital" and were stopping movement between buildings in the hospital compound. "Medical devices stopped" and "patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die," he said.

Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, on Saturday denied Shifa Hospital was under siege.

"There is no siege on the Shifa Hospital," Hagari said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter. "The east side of the hospital is open for the safe passage of Gazans who wish to leave the hospital."

However, people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside, the AP reported. There are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, as well with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Officials have said it is impossible for everyone to get out.

Hagari said the Israeli military was in contact with staff at Al-Shifa Hospital and will help move babies on Sunday.

"The staff of Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital," he said. "We will provide the assistance needed."

Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, said on Friday that such evacuations are, "as the World Health Organization has warned, a 'death sentence' in a context where the entire medical system is collapsing and hospitals in southern Gaza have no capacity to absorb more patients."

He added: "International humanitarian law is clear: it extends special protection to medical units and requires that they be protected and respected at all times."

Israel has claimed Hamas operates its command headquarters underneath the hospital complex. The Israeli military released an illustrated map of the hospital with claimed locations of underground militant installations, without providing further evidence. Hamas, and Salmiya have denied this, according to the AP.

Israel has said its goal is to crush Hamas, and will pursue militant fighters wherever they are, while trying to mitigate harm to civilians. Experts and rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes including genocide.

Israel has also come under mounting international pressure over the plight of civilians in Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Approximately 2.3 million Palestinians are trapped in Gaza, half of them children.

Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on the territory in 2005, and after Hamas' October 7 attack, Israel also cut off the supply of food, medicine, water and electricity into Gaza.

In a televised address on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire unless it includes the release of all the estimated 240 hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack.

Israel has only agreed to brief daily pauses during which civilians can evacuate the area of ground combat in northern Gaza.