Israel, Hamas skirmish in city as civilians flee
Crowds of Palestinian families stretching as far as the eye could see walked out of Gaza City and surrounding areas toward the south Thursday to escape Israeli airstrikes and ground troops battling Hamas in dense urban neighborhoods. Others joined tens of thousands taking shelter at the city's biggest hospital, not far from the fighting.
Gaza's largest city is the focus of Israel's campaign to crush Hamas following its deadly Oct. 7 incursion — and the Israeli military says Hamas' main command center is in and under the Shifa Hospital complex. The group and hospital staff deny that claim, saying the military is creating a pretext to strike it.
Growing numbers of people have been living in and around the hospital complex, hoping it will be safer than their homes or U.N. shelters in the north, several of which have been hit repeatedly. Israeli troops were around 2 miles from the hospital, according to its director.
Mediators worked on a possible deal for a threeday cease-fire in exchange for the release of around a dozen hostages held by Hamas, according to two Egyptian officials, a United Nations official and a Western diplomat.
Israeli ground forces battled near Gaza's largest hospital, Shifa. Conditions for tens of thousands of people sheltering there have become “catastrophic,” said Wafaa Abu Hajajj, a Palestinian journalist at the hospital.
She, as well as several people who left the hospital to go south, said families are sleeping in hospital rooms, emergency rooms, surgical theaters and the maternity ward, or on the streets outside. Daily food distributions helped a tiny number for a time, but there has been no bread for the past four days, they said.
Water is scarce and usually polluted, and few people can bathe.
Still more families are arriving, believing it is safer than fleeing to the south, where airstrikes also continue — although some have started to leave because of nearby missile strikes and the sound of clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters, Abu Hajajj said.
The hospital has been overwhelmed with daily waves of wounded from airstrikes, while medical supplies have been running low and electricity shut off in many wards. The U.N. delivered two truckloads of supplies Wednesday night, the second delivery since the war began — enough to last a few hours, the director said.
“The conditions here are disastrous in every sense of the word,” director Mohammed Abu Selmia told The Associated Press on Thursday. “We're short on medicine and equipment, and the doctors and nurses are exhausted. … We're unable to do much for the patients.”