People trapped in Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital dig mass graves, Israeli minister says UN chief not fit to lead – ABC News

Israel raids Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, as people trapped in the hospital dig mass graves
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it is carrying out a "targeted" military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip's Al-Shifa hospital.
It has urged all members of the militant group in the hospital to surrender.
"IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital, based on intelligence information and an operational necessity," the IDF posted on X.
"The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields."
Israel has said Hamas has a command centre underneath Al-Shifa hospital, the biggest in Gaza, and uses the hospital and tunnels underneath to conceal military operations and to hold hostages.
The US said on Tuesday that its own intelligence supported those conclusions.
However, it did not provide specific details on this intelligence.
Hamas denies it.
It says 650 patients and 5,000-7,000 other civilians are trapped inside the hospital grounds, under constant fire from snipers and drones.
According to Hamas, 40 patients have died in recent days, including three premature babies whose incubators were knocked out.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera television that Israeli forces had raided the western side of the medical complex.
"There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital," Dr Bursh said.
Israel Defense Forces earlier said it was carrying out a "precise and targeted operation" in Al-Shifa, but was "not overrunning the hospital".
Israel's move toward Al-Shifa hospital has raised questions about how it would interpret international laws on protection of medical facilities and the thousands of displaced people sheltering there, UN human rights officials have said.
Hospitals are protected buildings under international humanitarian law.
But allegations that Al-Shifa is also being used for military purposes complicated the situation because that would also breach international law, UN officials said.
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Israeli forces have waged fierce street battles against Hamas fighters over the past 10 days before advancing into the centre of Gaza City and surrounding Al-Shifa.
Medical staff say the hospital is barely functioning due to Israeli attacks and a lack of fuel to power generators.
Israeli defence officials also said they have agreed to allow fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations.
It is the first time that Israel has allowed fuel into the besieged territory since the Hamas militant group's bloody cross-border invasion.
Israel declared war and barred fuel shipments after the attack, saying Hamas would divert supplies for military use.
Fuel shortages have crippled operations at Gaza hospitals, which run on generators, and hindered the UN from delivering humanitarian services.
It said the decision was in response to a request from the US.
Here are the latest developments:
Israeli hostage families march on Netanyahu's home
Palestinians trapped inside Gaza's biggest hospital were digging a mass grave to bury patients who died under Israeli encirclement.
They said there was no plan in place to evacuate babies despite Israel announcing an offer to send portable incubators.
Ashraf Al-Qidra, Hamas's health ministry spokesman, reached by telephone inside the hospital compound, said there were about 100 bodies decomposing inside and no way to get them out.
"We are planning to bury them today in a mass grave inside the Al-Shifa medical complex. It is going to be very dangerous as we don't have any cover or protection from the ICRC," he told Reuters, referring to the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent.
"The men are digging right now as we speak."
As Israeli forces press deeper into Gaza on their mission to destroy Hamas, the enclave's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, has become a focal point.
Thirty-six babies were left from the neo-natal ward after three died.
Without fuel for generators to power incubators, the babies were being kept as warm as possible, lined up eight to a bed.
Israel announced on Tuesday that it was offering portable, battery-powered incubators so the babies could be moved.
But Mr Qidra said that so far no arrangements had been established to carry out any such evacuation.
"The occupation is still besieging the hospital and they are firing into the yards from time to time," he said.
Israel denies the hospital is under siege and says its forces allow exit routes for those inside.
Medics and officials inside the hospital deny this and say those trying to leave come under fire.
Reuters could not verify the situation.
A Hamas official in Beirut said 25 of Gaza's 35 hospitals were out of use because of Israel's assault.
The Israeli army says it captured Gaza's parliament building and other government institutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in the Palestinian territory.
Military units "took over the Hamas parliament, the government building, the Hamas police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons," the army said in a statement.
In this war between Israel and Hamas, we are in unprecedented territory. The civilian death toll has become so heavy so quickly, and yet Western leaders aren't expressly calling for a ceasefire, writes John Lyons.
The statement said "government institutions of the terrorist organisation Hamas" had been used for "military purposes" including "for training in preparation for the attack on Israel" on October 7.
The assault killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and saw about 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli officials, in the worst attack the nation has suffered since its founding in 1948.
In response, Israel has heavily bombed and invaded the densely populated Gaza Strip, where the Hamas government says more than 11,200 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed.
Hamas dismissed the Israeli army's announcement that it had taken over institutions.
The move was a "pathetic attempt to manufacture victory and imaginary control of empty places or those previously targeted and destroyed," Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement.
Israel's foreign minister said on Tuesday that United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was not fit to head the global body, saying he had not done enough to condemn militant group Hamas and was too close to Iran.
His comments, made at a press conference inside the UN building in Geneva, represent an intensification of Israel's criticism of the UN in the same week that the latter mourned the killing of more than 100 of its staff in Gaza.
"Guterres does not deserve to be the head of the United Nations," Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said.
Mr Cohen was meeting in Geneva with the World Health Organization and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) alongside families of Israeli hostages.
"I think that Guterres, like all the free nations, should say clearly and loudly: free Gaza from Hamas. Everyone said Hamas is worse than ISIS. Why can he not say it?" he said.
A spokesperson for the United Nations in New York did not immediately provide a comment.
Mr Guterres has previously said there was something "wrong" with Israel's military operation, which has killed more than 11,000 so far according to Gaza health authorities.
Mr Cohen, who met with ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric earlier on Tuesday, said he expected the neutral body to do more to gain access to the hostages.
"I think that the minimum is the Red Cross will meet the hostages; the minimum is they receive a proof of life; and the minimum [is] that they will transfer the medicine to the hostages who are needing it," he said.
Ms Spoljaric said the UN was trying to gain access, but said it first needed agreements in place.
"Please know that the ICRC cannot force its way in to where hostages are held," she said.
Health Minister Uriel Menachem Buso said that he would present evidence to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later on Tuesday that Hamas was using hospitals for military purposes.
Hamas denies its fighters are present.
Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, seven of them in clashes during a raid in the town of Tulkarm near the boundary with Israel, Palestinian medics and local media said.
The Israeli army and police said their forces, sent into Tulkarm to detain suspected militants, came under fire and killed several Palestinian gunmen in the ensuing skirmish.
An Israeli air strike hit a group of Palestinians who opened fire and threw a bomb at the forces, an army and police statement said.
Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the air strike was carried out by a drone and killed three people.
The Tulkarm Brigades, a local armed group, issued a statement saying it mourned the seven who were killed but it did not claim them as members.
Subsequently, video circulating on social media showed Israeli bulldozers destroying a monument to the founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, in Tulkarm.
Tulkarm, a major crossing point into Israel, has seen a series of clashes between Israeli forces and local militant groups as well as bands of stone-throwing youths during a sharp surge in violence since the deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas gunmen last month.
Tuesday's raid came after Al Qassem Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, put out a video claiming two attacks near the northern West Bank city of Nablus two days previously.
An eighth Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire on Tuesday in Beit Aynoun, north of the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, medical officials said.
The families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip kicked off a five-day march on Tuesday from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to demand the government does much more to secure their release.
Hamas fighters took around 240 people hostage during their October 7 attack on southern Israel.
The captives ranged in age from nine months to 85 and are believed to be being held in tunnels deep under the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming under fierce criticism from some relatives for not doing more to secure their release as the Israeli military pushes deep into Gaza with an order to destroy Hamas.
"I demand from Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet to give us answers and actions," said Shelly Shem Tov, whose 21-year-old son Omer was dragged into Gaza five weeks ago.
"Where are you? Where are you?" she said, addressing the government in an impassioned plea at the start of the march.
The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday it was ready to release up to 70 women and children hostages in return for a five-day truce and the release of 275 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.
It said Israel was "procrastinating and evading" the price of the deal.
Mr Netanyahu has so far rejected any talk of a ceasefire, telling NBC News on Sunday that he would only be willing to pause the fighting if all the hostages were freed.
He added that the best way to secure a deal was to maintain military pressure on Hamas. 
The Tel Aviv marchers will end their protest on Saturday in front of Mr Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, some 65 km away.
Wires/ABC
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