Palestinians sheltering inside Gaza's al-Shifa hospital are pleading for help from the international community as Israeli tanks continue to lay siege to the facility amid nearby battles between Israeli and Hamas fighters in the enclave's capital. Meanwhile, fuel has run out at the key medical site, leading to the shutdown of essential equipment and the consequent deaths of newborn babies, according to the hospital's staff.

As the death toll in Gaza hit over 11,000 over the weekend - with around 40 percent of the victims being children - the enclave's health ministry announced that al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, had ceased to function since Saturday due to fuel shortages. With electricity running out, two babies died in an incubator as a result, with dozens more at risk.

"We are using all and primitive means to try not to lose more lives," said Ashraf Al-Qidra, a representative of Gaza's health ministry. "But unless a solution is found to provide us with fuel or electricity the patients and injured are at risk of death."

Israel's military said on Sunday it would help evacuate babies from the hospital, at the request of the staff at al-Shifa, where according to one Doctors Without Borders surgeon, there is no water, power, food or internet access for about 600 post-operative patients, 40 babies and 17 people in intensive care. Asked about such evacuations for the infants, Al-Qidra said: "We have not been informed about any mechanism to get the babies out to a safer hospital. So far we are praying for their safety and not to lose more of them."

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Gaza's biggest hospital attacked

With the al-Shifa hospital caught up in Israel's ground invasion of Gaza, its military has denied it is deliberately targeting the site. However, its tanks and armored vehicles have closed in on the health facility and according to Palestinian reports have been attacking it with continuous bombardment for more than 24 hours. Health officials said on Sunday that its cardiac ward had been destroyed by the strikes, as Israeli troops, who have been set the task of destroying Hamas after its deadly cross-border assault on October 7, clashed with Palestinian fighters near the hospital. 

The World Health Organisation expressed "grave concern" for the safety of everyone trapped by the surrounding fighting, announcing on Sunday that it had lost communications with its last contacts at the medical site. Most hospital staff and people sheltering at al- Shifa have left, but 500 patients remain, with the facility's director saying that any person moving within the hospital compound was being attacked by Israeli snipers.

Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can eliminate Hamas fighters who it claims have placed command centers under and around them. Hamas denies using hospitals this way, stating that even if its fighters were located at medical facilities, it would not warrant the bombardment of civilians taking refuge there. Meanwhile, medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials claim that Israeli fire is making it almost impossible to evacuate such sites. 

Twenty of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "no longer functioning," according to the UN's humanitarian agency, while very little aid has made it into Gaza in the five weeks of war, with the densely populated coastal territory effectively sealed off by a total blockade that Israel has vowed to maintain until Hamas frees Israeli hostages.

Reports of possible hostage deal

Israel's three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, have said there was some progress toward a deal to free the hostages. Some 200 Israelis were taken prisoner during the Palestinian political organization's deadly attack on Israel last month, which killed 1,200 people. Some of the hostages have already been freed, while Gaza authorities say others were killed during Israeli aerial attacks on the Strip.

At a news conference late on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting. According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting.

Netanyahu in his address also ruled out a role for the current Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Gaza once the war is over. "There will have to be something else there," he said, when asked whether the PA, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the conflict.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month, said the PA could only assume power in Gaza if a "comprehensive political solution" is found for the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict encompassing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu, in an interview earlier this week, said that Israel would assume "overall security" over Gaza "for an indefinite period" after the war.

Hundreds of thousands flee south

Israel's ground incursion into northern Gaza has accelerated an exodus of people toward the Strip's south. In total, the Israeli army said Saturday that in the past three days around 200,000 Palestinians had left southwards from the area of the northern Gaza Strip where fighting is heaviest. As the humanitarian situation worsened, Gaza's border authority said the Rafah crossing into Egypt would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders. 

In Gaza's south, arriving people were no longer able to find tents or improvized shelter, with some sleeping in the streets, as Israeli trikes continued to hit buildings in Rafah, the area to which civilians have been urged to evacuate. A strike in nearby Bani Souheila destroyed a dozen houses on Sunday, killing at least four people and wounded at least 30, said an AFP reporter at the scene.

Several leaders of Muslim countries called on Saturday for an immediate end to Israel's military operations in Gaza, rejecting its justification of its actions against Palestinians as self-defense. The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Saudi Arabia's Riyadh urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing" in the Palestinian territories, according to a final communique.

As the conflict continues to stoke regional tensions and fears of the war expanding into neighboring countries, Israel fighter jets carried out strikes against "terror infrastructure" targets inside Syria in response to cross-border fire directed at the Golan Heights, the military said on Sunday.

Exchanges of cross-border fire have also taken place regularly along the frontier with Lebanon. Speaking at the Riyadh summit on Saturday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on Islamic governments to designate Israel's military a "terrorist organisation." Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned Iranian ally Hezbollah that joining the war would result in widespread destruction in Lebanon similar to that in Gaza.

Large marches calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza have been held in cities around the world including New York, Paris, Baghdad, Karachi, Berlin, and Edinburgh. In London, where at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched, police were forced to arrest over 120 people as far-right counter-protesters attempted to ambush the rally. 

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