Key Points
- Israel has faced growing calls for restraint in its war with Hamas.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made his strongest comments to date on the Hamas-Israel war.
- Blinken said "far too many" Palestinians had died and "suffered" due to Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Israel faced mounting international pressure, including from its main ally the United States, to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza as the death toll rose and
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday. Source: AAP / Fatima Shbair/AP
Al Shifa hospital suspends operations
The spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said that operations in Al Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, were suspended on Saturday after it ran out of fuel.
"As a result, one newborn baby died inside the incubator, where there are 45 babies," Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza told Reuters.
Israel's military, which residents said had been fighting Hamas gunmen all night in and around Gaza City where the hospital is located, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"The situation is worse than anyone can imagine. We are besieged inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex, and the occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside," Qidra said by telephone.
The Israeli military has said that Hamas militants who rampaged through southern Israel last month have placed command centres under Al Shifa hospital and others in Gaza, making them vulnerable to being considered military targets.
Hamas has denied using civilians as human shields and health officials say growing numbers of Israeli strikes on or near hospitals put at risk patients, medical staff and thousands of evacuees who have taken shelter in and near their buildings.
In his strongest comments to date on the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on a visit to India on Friday: "Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks."
But Blinken reaffirmed US support for Israel's campaign to ensure that Gaza can no longer be used "as a platform for launching terrorism."
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas after the 7 October attack. Israel has struck Gaza - an enclave of 2.3 million people - from the air, a ground invasion.
Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since 7 October.
Israel had said 1,400 people were killed, mostly civilians, and about 240 were taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October, while 39 soldiers have been killed in combat since.
On Friday, Israel's foreign ministry said a revised death toll from the attack was about 1,200.
One child killed on average every 10 minutes in Gaza - WHO chief
A child is killed on average every 10 minutes in the Gaza Strip, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the United Nations Security Council on Friday, warning: "Nowhere and no one is safe."
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Source: AAP / Martial Trezzini
"Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying. Morgues overflowing. Surgery without anesthesia. Tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals," Tedros told the 15-member council.
"On average, a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza," Tedros said.
Since 7 October, the WHO has verified more than 250 attacks on healthcare in Gaza and the West Bank, while there have been 25 attacks on healthcare in Israel, Tedros said.
Israel says Hamas hides weapons in tunnels under hospitals, charges Hamas denies.
Growing calls for restraint
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a BBC interview published late on Friday, said Israel must stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians. France, he said, "clearly condemns" the "terrorist" actions of Hamas, but that while recognising Israel's right to protect itself, "we do urge them to stop this bombing" in Gaza.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said world leaders should be condemning Hamas, and not Israel.
"These crimes that Hamas (is) committing today in Gaza will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York and anywhere in the world," Netanyahu said.
Israel has said that Hamas would exploit a truce to regroup if there were a ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia will host an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh on Saturday, the Saudi foreign ministry said late on Friday.
The kingdom was scheduled to host two extraordinary summits, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit and the Arab League summit, on Saturday.
Over 11,000 people have been killed, and more have been injured and displaced during the conflict. Source: AAP / HAITHAM IMAD/EPA
Earlier on Friday, Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, director of Al Shifa hospital said Israel was on Gaza City hospitals.
He later said at least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Al-Buraq school in Gaza City, where people whose homes had been destroyed were sheltering.
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group, which gained power in the Gaza Strip after winning legislative elections in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel's right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. New Zealand and Paraguay list only its military wing as a terrorist group.
In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted against a resolution condemning Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.
Israeli tanks, which have been advancing through northern Gaza for almost two weeks, have taken up positions around the Nasser Rantissi cancer hospital as well as the Al-Quds hospital, medical staff said earlier, raising the alarm.
The Palestinian Red Cross said Israeli forces were shooting at Al-Quds hospital, and there were violent clashes, with one person killed and 28 wounded, most of them children.
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said the army "does not fire on hospitals".
"If we see Hamas terrorists firing from hospitals we'll do what we need to do. We're aware of the sensitivity (of hospitals), but again, if we see Hamas terrorists, we'll kill them," Hecht said.
The White House said on Thursday that Israel agreed to pause military operations in parts of north Gaza for four hours a day, and the army said Palestinians on Friday were allowed to leave over seven hours along a road south, but there was no sign of a let-up in the fighting.
More than 100,000 residents had fled south in the past two days as Israeli forces operate "deep in Gaza City", chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
But evacuations from Gaza into Egypt for foreign passport holders and for Palestinians needing urgent treatment were suspended on Friday, sources said.
A Palestinian official and an Egyptian medical source blamed problems bringing medical evacuees to the Rafah border crossing from inside Gaza.
Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas following Hamas rocket fire. Medics reported two women in Tel Aviv suffered shrapnel wounds from a salvo.
The armed wing of Hamas said it was still firing rockets and shells into Israel and fighting off troops in Gaza.
