Patients stranded in hospitals as battles escalate in Gaza

Patients and premature babies in Gaza are stranded without supply, or forced to flee the hospitals as battles between Israel and Hamas escalate.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that attempts to evacuate the al-Quds Hospital, the second-largest hospital in Gaza, failed due to "continuing shelling and shooting."

"The convoy was forced to return due to the dangerous conditions in the Tal al-Hawa area, where the hospital is located," said the Red Crescent in a statement. "The medical staff, patients and their companions are still trapped inside the hospital without food, water or electricity," it said.

Israel denied it was attacking hospitals. In a statement, the military said that a militant squad embedded itself in the area of the al-Quds Hospital and shot RPG fire and gunfire from the hospital entrance at soldiers.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had "initiated a humanitarian effort to coordinate transfer of incubators" from Israel to Al-Shifa Hospital but none of the devices, often used to keep pre-mature newborns warm, had been received by the facility.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that it has informed mediators of its readiness to release 50 women and children hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a five-day ceasefire.

Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a message on its Telegram channel that the continued Israeli ground, naval, and aerial aggression threatens the lives of the detainees held by them and by other armed Palestinian factions in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday doubled down on Israel's war against Hamas, vowing that Israel will see the "war to the end."

Hamas media office in Gaza said on Monday that the Palestinian death toll had risen to 11,240, with over 40 percent of them children.

U.S. President Joe Biden expressed concern for hospitals in Gaza on Monday, expressing hope that "there will be less intrusive action relative to the hospitals."

Fuel crisis

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it has no fuel to fill its trucks in Gaza and will not be able to facilitate aid deliveries through the Rafah crossing on Tuesday. 

Thomas White, director of the UNRWA, warned that all of the group's aid operations in Gaza will be shut down in the next 48 hours unless fuel is allowed into the besieged territory.

The agency's fuel depot in Gaza has run dry and within a few days UNRWA will no longer be able to resupply hospitals, remove sewage and provide drinking water, the UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, told donors on Monday.

Palestinian health officials said hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip went out of service as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks and the outage of fuel needed to operate generators.

"The exhaustion of fuel in the last generator at Al-Shifa Medical Complex caused the deaths of at least five newborns and seven other patients," said Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesperson of the health ministry. 

(With input from agencies)