More Gaza hospitals suspend operations as Israel hunts Hamas

Tel Aviv [Israel], November 13: Two more major hospitals in Gaza closed to new patients on Sunday, with staff saying that Israeli bombardment plus lack of fuel and medicine meant more babies and others could die.
Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, medical staff said. Israel says it is homing in on Hamas militants in the area and the hospitals should be evacuated.
Gaza's largest and second largest hospitals, Al Shifa and Al-Quds, said they were suspending operations. With more people killed and wounded daily but half of the territory's hospitals now out of action, there are ever fewer places for the injured.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has managed to restore communication with health professionals at Shifa, WHO Director-General TedrosAdhanomGhebreyesus said, adding that the situation was "dire and perilous" with constant gunfire and bombing exacerbating the already critical circumstances.
A plastic surgeon in Shifa said bombing of the building housing incubators had forced them to line up premature babies on ordinary beds, using the little power available to turn the air conditioning to warm.
Israel says Hamas has placed command centres under and near the hospitals and it needs to get at them to free around 200 hostages the militants took in Israel in an attack just over a month ago. Hamas has denied using hospitals in this way.
On Sunday, a Palestinian official briefed on talks over the release of hostages said Hamas had suspended the negotiations because of the way Israel had handled Shifa hospital.
There was no immediate comment from either Hamas or Israel.
Israel's military said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies and had placed 300 litres of fuel at Shifa's entrance on Saturday night, but that both gestures had been blocked by Hamas.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Shifa, said reports of refusing to leave the diesel were "lies and slander." Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said that of 45 babies in incubators at Shifa, three had already died.
Shifa was out of reach for the newly wounded, said Mohammad Qandil, a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in south Gaza, who is in touch with colleagues there.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Quds hospital was also out of service, with staff struggling to care for those already there with little medicine, food and water.
Three U.N. agencies expressed horror at the situation in the hospitals, saying it had in 36 days registered at least 137 attacks on healthcare facilities, resulting in 521 deaths and 686 injuries - including 16 dead and 38 wounded medics.
With the humanitarian situation across Gaza worsening, 80 foreigners and several injured Palestinians crossed into Egypt in the first evacuations since Friday, four Egyptian security sources said.
Poland said 18 of them were its citizens, and U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News American citizens would be moved out of Gaza during Sunday.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation