Medics and patients, including babies, stranded as battles rage around Gaza hospitals
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00:00 In Gaza City, the hospitals have become battlegrounds.
00:05 In the center of the fighting, a Shifa hospital continues to house thousands of refugees from
00:09 the violence, in addition to the injured.
00:12 All this without electricity, water or medical supplies.
00:16 It's a sign of how desperate the situation has become.
00:20 Hospital staff say dozens of patients have died there due to lack of resources, including
00:25 several premature babies in desperate need of functioning incubators.
00:29 These are very critical kinds of cases where you have to be very sensitive in dealing with
00:36 them.
00:37 Currently, they are all in open space.
00:39 They are all with each other with no infection control measures.
00:43 The UN says another major hospital in Gaza is also non-functional.
00:47 Yesterday, also, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that Al-Quds Hospital in
00:53 Gaza City was no longer operational due to the damages to the main generator line, which
00:58 could not be repaired during the conflict and the consequent power outage.
01:04 As heavy fighting rages on around these hospitals, evacuations have become nearly impossible
01:09 for those seeking to flee these last remaining shelters.
01:12 Some patients are too ill or injured to be safely moved, and hospital staff say they
01:17 want to stay and take care of them.
01:19 The Israeli military said Tuesday that it was working to transfer incubators into the
01:23 Gaza Strip and possibly enable the evacuation of newborn babies.
01:28 The U.S. continues to press Israel for longer humanitarian pauses, with President Joe Biden
01:33 urging that hospitals be protected.
01:35 I have not been reluctant in expressing my concerns with what's going on, and it's
01:41 my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action relative to the hospital.
01:52 Hospitals have special protections during war under international law.
01:56 But, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, those protections can be
02:00 lost if combatants use them to store weapons or hide fighters.