Patients, staff, and displaced people left Gaza's largest hospital Saturday, health officials said, leaving behind only a skeleton crew to care for those too sick to move and Israeli forces in control of the facility.
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The exodus from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City came the same day internet and phone service was restored to the Gaza Strip, ending a telecommunications blackout that forced the United Nations to shut down critical humanitarian aid deliveries because it was unable to coordinate its convoys.
Video: Thousands of protesters arrive in Jerusalem to demand the release of Hamas-held captives / Credit: שב״פ sha_b_p@
Israel continued to expand its offensive in Gaza City, with the military warning in a social media post in Arabic that residents of two neighborhoods in the east and north and the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya must evacuate for their safety.
It said military activities would be paused briefly to allow them to leave. Earlier in the week, the Israeli defense minister had said troops had completed operations in the west of Gaza City.
Attacks also continued in the south of the Gaza Strip, with an Israeli airstrike hitting a residential building on the outskirts of the town of Khan Younis.
Israel's military has been searching Shifa Hospital for traces of a Hamas command center that it alleges was located under the building. On Saturday, the military said it had been asked by the hospital's director to help those who would like to leave do so by a secure route.
The military said it did not order any evacuation, and that medical personnel were being allowed to remain in the hospital to support patients who cannot be moved.
But Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the military had ordered the facility cleared, giving the hospital an hour to get people out.
After it appeared the evacuation was mostly complete, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, a Shifa physician, said on social media that there were some 120 patients remaining who were unable to leave, including some in intensive care and premature babies, and that he and five other doctors were staying behind to care for them.
It was not immediately clear where those who left the hospital had gone, with 25 of Gaza's hospitals non-functional due to lack of fuel, damage, and other problems and the other 11 only partially operational, according to the World Health Operation.
Israel has said hospitals in northern Gaza were a key target of its ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas, claiming they were used as terrorist command centers and weapons depots, which both Hamas and medical staff deny.
Israeli troops have encircled or entered several hospitals, while others stopped functioning because of dwindling supplies and loss of electricity.
The Palestinian telecommunications provider said it was able to restart its generators after the UN donated fuel.
Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said 120,000 liters (31,700 gallons) of fuel arrived Saturday, meant to last for two days, after Israel agreed Friday to allow in that amount for the UN's use. It is also allowing another 10,000 liters (2,642 gallons) to keep the telecommunications systems running.
Thousands of marchers – including families of more than 50 hostages – snaked along a main Israeli highway Saturday on their last leg of a five-day walk from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Calling on the government to do more to rescue some 240 hostages held by Hamas during the Oct. 7 massacre, in which its terrorists murdered some 1,2000 Israeli residents in a cross-border attack. The protesters planned to rally outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence.
A spokesperson for the families, Liat Bell Sommer, said two members of Israel's wartime Cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, had agreed to meet with them. She added it was not yet clear whether Netanyahu would as well.
Many are furious with the government for refusing to tell them more about what is being done to rescue the hostages. They have urged the Cabinet to consider a cease-fire or prisoner swap in return for the hostages, both proposals which the government has thus far opposed.
Hamas reportedly offered to exchange all hostages for some 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, which the government rejected.
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