KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Heavy fighting erupted Monday around a hospital in northern Gaza where thousands of patients and displaced people have been sheltering for weeks, as Israeli forces focus on clearing out medical facilities that they say Hamas militants use for cover.
The advance on the Indonesian Hospital came a day after the World Health Organization evacuated 31 premature babies from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory’s largest, where they were among more than 250 critically ill or wounded patients stranded there days after Israeli forces entered the compound.
The plight of Gaza’s hospitals is at the focus of a battle of narratives over the war’s brutal toll on Palestinian civilians, thousands of whom have been killed or buried in rubble since the six-week-old war was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel.
Israel says Hamas uses civilians as human shields, while critics say Israel’s siege and relentless aerial bombardment amount to collective punishment of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
Marwan Abdallah, a medical worker at the Indonesian Hospital, said Israeli tanks were visible from the windows. “You can see them moving around and firing,” he said. “Women and children are terrified. There are constant sounds of explosions and gunfire.”
Al-Jazeera television aired footage apparently shot from inside the hospital showing tanks firing just outside the facility.
Abdallah said the hospital had received dozens of dead and wounded in airstrikes and shelling overnight. He said medical staff and displaced people fear Israel will besiege the hospital and force its evacuation.
The Israeli military, which rarely publicizes troop movements, had no immediate comment.
Babies evacuated
UN bodies were able to safely evacuate the babies, who were in critical condition, from Shifa to a hospital in southern Gaza, and plan to transport them to a hospital in neighboring Egypt. Four other babies died in the two days before the evacuation, according to Mohamed Zaqout, the director of Gaza hospitals.
Over 250 patients with severely infected wounds and other urgent conditions remain in Shifa, which could no longer provide most treatment after it ran out of water, medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators amid a territory-wide blackout. Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants outside its gates for days before entering the facility last Wednesday.
Israel’s army said it had strong evidence supporting its claims that Hamas maintained a sprawling command post inside and under the hospital’s 20-acre complex, which includes several buildings, garages and a plaza.
The military released a video showing what it said was a tunnel discovered at the hospital, 55-meter (60-yard) long and about 10 meters (33 feet) below ground. It said the tunnel included a staircase and a firing hole that could be used by gunmen, and ended at a blast-proof door that troops have not yet opened.
The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify Israel’s findings, which included security camera video showing what the military said were two foreign hostages, one Thai and one Nepalese, who were captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack and taken to the hospital.
The army also said an investigation had determined that Israeli army Cpl. Noa Marciano, another captive whose body was recovered in Gaza, had been injured in an Israeli strike on Nov. 9 that killed her captor, but was then killed by a Hamas militant in Shifa.
Hamas and hospital staff have denied the allegations of a command post under Shifa. Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan dismissed the latest announcement, saying “the Israelis said there was a command and control center, which means that the matter is greater than just a tunnel.”
3 in 4 people displaced
Israel has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to leave northern Gaza and seek refuge in the south, which has also been under aerial bombardment since the start of the war. Some 1.7 million people, nearly three quarters of Gaza’s population, have been displaced, with 900,000 packing into crowded UN-run shelters, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Their misery has worsened in recent days because of cold winds and driving rain.
More than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, believed buried in rubble. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, and Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
About 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mainly civilians during the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas dragged some 240 captives back into Gaza. The military says 63 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Hamas has released four hostages, Israel has rescued one, and the bodies of two were found near Shifa.
Israel, the United States and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, have been negotiating a much larger hostage release for weeks. Israel’s three-member war cabinet is to meet with representatives of the hostages’ families on Monday evening.
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Heavy fighting surrounds another Gaza hospital after babies evacuated from Al-Shifa
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Heavy fighting surrounds another Gaza hospital after babies evacuated from Al-Shifa
- Advance on Indonesian Hospital came day after WHO evacuated 31 premature babies from Al-Shifa Hospital
- Plight of Gaza’s hospitals focus of battle of narratives over war’s brutal toll on Palestinian civilians
Palestinian citizens in Israel demand more security from violence
- Protests and strikes are sweeping Israel over record levels of violence targeting the country’s Palestinian citizens
- At least 26 people were killed in January alone, adding to a record-breaking toll of more than 250 last year
KAFR YASIF, Israel: Nabil Safiya had taken a break from studying for a biology exam to meet a cousin at a pizza parlor when a gunman on a motorcycle rode past and fired, killing the 15-year-old as he sat in a black Renault.
The shooting — which police later said was a case of mistaken identity — stunned his hometown of Kafr Yasif, long besieged, like many Palestinian towns in Israel, by a wave of gang violence and family feuds.
“There is no set time for the gunfire anymore,” said Nabil’s father, Ashraf Safiya. “They can kill you in school, they can kill you in the street, they can kill you in the football stadium.”
The violence plaguing Israel’s Arab minority has become an inescapable part of daily life. Activists have long accused authorities of failing to address the issue and say that sense has deepened under Israel’s current far-right government.
One out of every five citizens in Israel is Palestinian. The rate of crime-related killings among them is more than 22 times higher than that for Jewish Israelis, while arrest and indictment rates for those crimes are far lower. Critics cite the disparities as evidence of entrenched discrimination and neglect.
A growing number of demonstrations are sweeping Israel. Thousands marched in Tel Aviv late Saturday to demand action, while Arab communities have gone on strike, closing shops and schools.
In November, after Nabil was gunned down, residents marched through the streets, students boycotted their classes and the Safiya family turned their home into a shrine with pictures and posters of Nabil.
The outrage had as much to do with what happened as with how often it keeps happening.
“There’s a law for the Jewish society and a different law for Palestinian society,” Ghassan Munayyer, a political activist from Lod, a mixed city with a large Palestinian population, said at a recent protest.
An epidemic of violence
Some Palestinian citizens have reached the highest echelons of business and politics in Israel. Yet many feel forsaken by authorities, with their communities marked by underinvestment and high unemployment that fuels frustration and distrust toward the state.
Nabil was one of a record 252 Palestinian citizens to be killed in Israel last year, according to data from Abraham Initiatives, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that promotes coexistence and safer communities. The toll continues to climb, with at least 26 additional crime-related killings in January.
Walid Haddad, a criminologist who teaches at Ono Academic College and who previously worked in Israel’s national security ministry, said that organized crime thrives off weapons trafficking and loan‑sharking in places where people lack access to credit. Gangs also extort residents and business owners for “protection,” he said.
Based on interviews with gang members in prisons and courts, he said they can earn anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on whether the job is torching cars, shooting at buildings or assassinating rival leaders.
“If they fire at homes or people once or twice a month, they can buy cars, go on trips. It’s easy money,” Haddad said, noting a widespread sense of impunity.
The violence has stifled the rhythm of life in many Palestinian communities. In Kafr Yasif, a northern Israel town of 10,000, streets empty by nightfall, and it’s not uncommon for those trying to sleep to hear gunshots ringing through their neighborhoods.
Prosecutions lag
Last year, only 8 percent of killings of Palestinian citizens led to charges filed against suspects, compared with 55 percent in Jewish communities, according to Abraham Initiatives.
Lama Yassin, the Abraham Initiatives’ director of shared cities and regions, said strained relations with police long discouraged Palestinian citizens from calling for new police stations or more police officers in their communities.
Not anymore.
“In recent years, because people are so depressed and feel like they’re not able to practice day-to-day life ... Arabs are saying, ‘Do whatever it takes, even if it means more police in our towns,’” Yassin said.
The killings have become a rallying cry for Palestinian-led political parties after successive governments pledged to curb the bloodshed with little results. Politicians and activists see the spate of violence as a reflection of selective enforcement and police apathy.
“We’ve been talking about this for 10 years,” said Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman.
She labeled policing in Palestinian communities “collective punishment,” noting that when Jews are victims of violence, police often set up roadblocks in neighboring Palestinian towns, flood areas with officers and arrest suspects en masse.
“The only side that can be able to smash a mafia is the state and the state is doing nothing except letting (organized crime) understand that they are free to do whatever they want,” Touma-Suleiman said.
Many communities feel impunity has gotten worse, she added, under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who with authority over the police has launched aggressive and visible campaigns against other crimes, targeting protests and pushing for tougher operations in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli police reject allegations of skewed priorities, saying that killings in these communities are a top priority. Police also have said investigations are challenging because witnesses don’t always cooperate.
“Investigative decisions are guided by evidence, operational considerations, and due process, not by indifference or lack of prioritization,” police said in a statement.
Unanswered demands
In Kafr Yasif, Ashraf Safiya vowed his son wouldn’t become just another statistic.
He had just gotten home from his work as a dentist and off the phone with Nabil when he learned about the shooting. He raced to the scene to find the car window shattered as Nabil was being rushed to the hospital. Doctors there pronounced him dead.
“The idea was that the blood of this boy would not be wasted,” Safiya said of protests he helped organize. “If people stop caring about these cases, we’re going to just have another case and another case.”
Authorities said last month they were preparing to file an indictment against a 23-year-old arrested in a neighboring town in connection with the shooting. They said the intended target was a relative, referring to the cousin with Nabil that night.
And they described Nabil as a victim of what they called “blood feuds within Arab society.”
At a late January demonstration in Kafr Yasif, marchers carried portraits of Nabil and Nidal Mosaedah, another local boy killed in the violence. Police broke up the protest, saying it lasted longer than authorized, and arrested its leaders, including the former head of the town council.
The show of force, residents said, may have quashed one protest, but did nothing to halt the killings.
The shooting — which police later said was a case of mistaken identity — stunned his hometown of Kafr Yasif, long besieged, like many Palestinian towns in Israel, by a wave of gang violence and family feuds.
“There is no set time for the gunfire anymore,” said Nabil’s father, Ashraf Safiya. “They can kill you in school, they can kill you in the street, they can kill you in the football stadium.”
The violence plaguing Israel’s Arab minority has become an inescapable part of daily life. Activists have long accused authorities of failing to address the issue and say that sense has deepened under Israel’s current far-right government.
One out of every five citizens in Israel is Palestinian. The rate of crime-related killings among them is more than 22 times higher than that for Jewish Israelis, while arrest and indictment rates for those crimes are far lower. Critics cite the disparities as evidence of entrenched discrimination and neglect.
A growing number of demonstrations are sweeping Israel. Thousands marched in Tel Aviv late Saturday to demand action, while Arab communities have gone on strike, closing shops and schools.
In November, after Nabil was gunned down, residents marched through the streets, students boycotted their classes and the Safiya family turned their home into a shrine with pictures and posters of Nabil.
The outrage had as much to do with what happened as with how often it keeps happening.
“There’s a law for the Jewish society and a different law for Palestinian society,” Ghassan Munayyer, a political activist from Lod, a mixed city with a large Palestinian population, said at a recent protest.
An epidemic of violence
Some Palestinian citizens have reached the highest echelons of business and politics in Israel. Yet many feel forsaken by authorities, with their communities marked by underinvestment and high unemployment that fuels frustration and distrust toward the state.
Nabil was one of a record 252 Palestinian citizens to be killed in Israel last year, according to data from Abraham Initiatives, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that promotes coexistence and safer communities. The toll continues to climb, with at least 26 additional crime-related killings in January.
Walid Haddad, a criminologist who teaches at Ono Academic College and who previously worked in Israel’s national security ministry, said that organized crime thrives off weapons trafficking and loan‑sharking in places where people lack access to credit. Gangs also extort residents and business owners for “protection,” he said.
Based on interviews with gang members in prisons and courts, he said they can earn anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on whether the job is torching cars, shooting at buildings or assassinating rival leaders.
“If they fire at homes or people once or twice a month, they can buy cars, go on trips. It’s easy money,” Haddad said, noting a widespread sense of impunity.
The violence has stifled the rhythm of life in many Palestinian communities. In Kafr Yasif, a northern Israel town of 10,000, streets empty by nightfall, and it’s not uncommon for those trying to sleep to hear gunshots ringing through their neighborhoods.
Prosecutions lag
Last year, only 8 percent of killings of Palestinian citizens led to charges filed against suspects, compared with 55 percent in Jewish communities, according to Abraham Initiatives.
Lama Yassin, the Abraham Initiatives’ director of shared cities and regions, said strained relations with police long discouraged Palestinian citizens from calling for new police stations or more police officers in their communities.
Not anymore.
“In recent years, because people are so depressed and feel like they’re not able to practice day-to-day life ... Arabs are saying, ‘Do whatever it takes, even if it means more police in our towns,’” Yassin said.
The killings have become a rallying cry for Palestinian-led political parties after successive governments pledged to curb the bloodshed with little results. Politicians and activists see the spate of violence as a reflection of selective enforcement and police apathy.
“We’ve been talking about this for 10 years,” said Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman.
She labeled policing in Palestinian communities “collective punishment,” noting that when Jews are victims of violence, police often set up roadblocks in neighboring Palestinian towns, flood areas with officers and arrest suspects en masse.
“The only side that can be able to smash a mafia is the state and the state is doing nothing except letting (organized crime) understand that they are free to do whatever they want,” Touma-Suleiman said.
Many communities feel impunity has gotten worse, she added, under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who with authority over the police has launched aggressive and visible campaigns against other crimes, targeting protests and pushing for tougher operations in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli police reject allegations of skewed priorities, saying that killings in these communities are a top priority. Police also have said investigations are challenging because witnesses don’t always cooperate.
“Investigative decisions are guided by evidence, operational considerations, and due process, not by indifference or lack of prioritization,” police said in a statement.
Unanswered demands
In Kafr Yasif, Ashraf Safiya vowed his son wouldn’t become just another statistic.
He had just gotten home from his work as a dentist and off the phone with Nabil when he learned about the shooting. He raced to the scene to find the car window shattered as Nabil was being rushed to the hospital. Doctors there pronounced him dead.
“The idea was that the blood of this boy would not be wasted,” Safiya said of protests he helped organize. “If people stop caring about these cases, we’re going to just have another case and another case.”
Authorities said last month they were preparing to file an indictment against a 23-year-old arrested in a neighboring town in connection with the shooting. They said the intended target was a relative, referring to the cousin with Nabil that night.
And they described Nabil as a victim of what they called “blood feuds within Arab society.”
At a late January demonstration in Kafr Yasif, marchers carried portraits of Nabil and Nidal Mosaedah, another local boy killed in the violence. Police broke up the protest, saying it lasted longer than authorized, and arrested its leaders, including the former head of the town council.
The show of force, residents said, may have quashed one protest, but did nothing to halt the killings.
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