Good morning from London, the latest on the #Israel - #Gaza war:
The #Israeli military has denied accusations it's attacked Gaza's largest hospital, Al-#Shifa - but has acknowledged "clashes" with #Hamas fighters in the area
A surgeon at Al-Shifa earlier told the #BBC the facility had run out of water, food and electricity - and that the intensive care unit had been struck
UĶ PM Sunak has condemned "violent, wholly unacceptable" actions by far-right groups and "Hamas sympathisers" after protests and clashes in London. About 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched to call for a ceasefire, in the biggest UK rally since the Israel-Gaza war began.
The #Israeli military says it's agreed to help evacuate vulnerable babies from #Gaza 's main hospital today
Concerns from doctors for dozens of newborns at Al-#Shifa hospital are growing - after a doctors' group said two had already died due to a lack of electricity
The #BBC has been sent pictures of at least 20 infants being kept in a surgical ward at the hospital. They are lined up on adult hospital beds, with several appearing to need of oxygen treatment that is not available
V #BBC Nick Beake:
Moving dozens of babies from intensive care is a delicate process
Israel says it will help the evacuation but staff inside Gaza’s biggest hospital seem unclear on the details - with the head of surgery warning that other hospitals in the territory don't have the expertise or facilities to look after the reported 37 babies who were being cared for at Shifa’s neonatal unit before it lost electricity.
(Cont)
Israel maintains there is still a safe exit route out of the hospital for patients - and others who had sought refuge there - to start on the journey further south into Gaza.
But with heavy fighting on their doorstep and stories of evacuees being fired on, many inside the hospital feel any attempt to leave is fraught with the greatest of danger.
The UN says one of its offices in Gaza City was shelled overnight, with "reports of deaths & injured" among civilians sheltering there.
"This is wrong on every count," the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner says in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
"Civilians, civilian infrastructure & the inviolability of UN facilities must be always protected."
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has followed Labour leader Keir Starmer in calling for Rishi Sunak to sack Home Secretary Suella Braverman for stoking tensions ahead of Armistice Day that has seen a hundreds of thousands strong pro-Palestinian march in London where counter-protesting far right groups caused skirmishes with police. (Scotland's First Minister called on her too to resign) https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-suella-braverman-keir-starmer-mayor-prime-minister-b1119771.html
#BBCNews - UK PM condemns criminality on day of protests in London https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67390514
Rishi Sunak has condemned "violent, wholly unacceptable" actions by far-right groups and "Hamas sympathisers" after protests and clashes in London.
The Met also condemned "extreme violence" by right-wing activists and criticised the actions of "breakaway groups behaving in an intimidating manner" at the end of the pro-Palestinian march. It issued photos of 3 people it suspects of antisemitic hate crimes
WHO says it has lost comms with its contacts at Gaza's the Al-Shifa hospital.
A doctor at the hospital has told Reuters that medics "expect to lose more babies each day" because there is not enough power for incubators. We know that at least 20 newborn babies are being kept in a surgical theatre
Israel's president Isaac Herzog says Hamas has its base underneath the Al-Shifa - something Hamas denies. He also denied claims that the hospital has run out of power
The Israeli military says it is not hitting the hospital during fighting. There are reports that people trying to flee are being targeted with gunfire
BBC's Gaza reporter Rushdi Abualouf has spoken to someone at the UN office in Gaza City that was attacked overnight. It is close to Al-Shifa Hospital. Rushdi's contact said there were about 40 Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles nearby, and that officers gave civilians water and told them they should leave
The Palestinian Red Crescent says Al Quds hospital, the second largest hospital in Gaza, is no longer operational as its fuel reserves have run out. The organisation adds that it has barely been able to contact their staff at the hospital for the past five days
Airstrikes continue in the south, and more than 20 people are reported to have died in Khan Younis
Earlier today PM Netanyahu told NBC about Al-Shifa hospital the following:
"We offered last night, actually, to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on," he says, claiming that the fuel was refused.
"Because we obviously have no battle with patients, or with civilians at all. I think every civilian death, every dead baby is a tragedy."
IDF has released video that it says shows the fuel being offered, but we have not independently verified the footage
I think it is smart to take jihadist-influenced fighters at their word that they’re ready to be martyrs.
What I see on the internet is either: Hamas is the the hero. Or, Israel is spotless, squeky clean.
Hamas wants more war, so wants Netanyahu’s far right. They both believe in a fight to the death and don’t actually care about civilian casualties. But they larp as if they would.
That is a ridiculously inadequate amount of fuel for the largest Hospital in #Gaza. The hospital said it needs 10,000L.
The #IDF know this so it appears to have been to distract from criticism of a war crime while they cause the deaths of critically ill babies, one by one as a direct result of their siege and destruction of healthcare across #Gaza.
@markhughes 300l would run a 100kw generator at half power for 19 hours or a 40kw one at 3/4 power for 24 hours according to https://www.generatorsource.com/Diesel_Fuel_Consumption.aspx
I don't know how big al Shifa's generators are & they have solar too. It seems possible 300l used just for the babies could keep those 37 babies alive for another 24 hours, & ask for more fuel for the next day after showing good use of the first batch.
It seems no one was willing to risk their life collecting the fuel in order to save the babies.
@DavidPenington
The staff in that hospital are there because they choose to look after sick people rather than leave them to suffer and die. I don't think it is correct to suggest they are not willing to risk their lives to save their patients, least of all those babies.
They live in terror under a criminal siege, regular bombardment and risk of sniper fire.
Many have already died and many more will die unless the siege is lifted and essential supplies restored.
@peterbrown@fulelo If anything is apparent in the discussion about this war, it is the stubborn and pressing need to see one side of the conflict as pure & innocent and absolutely in no way responsible of anything that happened.
Another brilliant take was from Yuval Noah Harari, when he said that people ”Try to rescue the past”, so they fight wars to try and change it.
@fulelo ”After the website's initial report, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel's war cabinet, said the photojournalists should be treated as terrorists if it was proven they knew in advance of the 7 October attacks.
An MP for the ruling Likud party, Danny Danon, also said the journalists would be added to a list of people marked for assassination because of their participation in the attacks.”
There is such a thing as going too far, and endangering democracy, #israel
@gimulnautti@fulelo I can’t think of another country in the world where a politician, a member of government, a member of cabinet even, could talk of adding somebody to the assassination list.
I don’t think even Putin would say something like that.
@peterbrown@fulelo The far right thrives on fear. And it’s best enemy is a far right of another culture. They both benefit from war, and they will say the other side is weak & immoral, will perish, but also is monstrous and must be fought to the death. They will say: ”peace is not possible, negociations have failed”, both of them. And they won’t take the deal when one is offered, because they expect to be duped. So they continue, saying the fight proves them right.
@fulelo There is a such a thing as going too far and endangering democracy, Israel.
If every journalist who photographs Hamas is treated as a terrorist and added to IDF’s kill list, it is not a democracy.
The far right will have you believe every fight is a fight to the death, every threat is mortal threat, and you must show strength at all cost or be lost forever.
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