Heavy Fighting Around Another Gaza Hospital

November 20, 2023 5:12 am

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Heavy fighting erupted around a hospital in northern Gaza where thousands of patients and displaced people have been sheltering for weeks. Israeli forces are focused on clearing medical facilities that they say Hamas militants use for cover. The advance on the Indonesian Hospital Monday came a day after the World Health Organization evacuated 31 premature babies from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory’s largest. They were among more than 250 critically ill or wounded patients stranded there days after Israeli forces entered the compound. The plight of hospitals is at the heart of warring narratives over the soaring toll among Palestinian civilians in the six-week-old war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel.