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Today’s top stories
Dozens of Gaza’s hospitals have effectively stopped functioning, due to fuel shortages and ground battles between Israel and Hamas. Israel asserts that Hamas fighters are sheltering beneath hospitals, and has ordered facilities in the north to evacuate. Patients and doctors have been caught in the crossfire of heavy street fighting, and humanitarian groups are pleading for combat near hospitals to end.
- At Al-Shifa, dozens of babies are in danger — and two died — after being removed from defunct incubators. Paul Caney, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, told NPR that electricity is out, people are hiding in corridors because of sniper fire near the windows and there are no ambulances moving patients.
- There are growing international calls for a cease-fire, including from hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters who marched in London over the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated there will be no cease-fire until all hostages are released.
- The Geneva Conventions give hospitals special protection during war, but the shield is not absolute. Experts tell NPR’s Greg Myre that a Hamas attack carried out from a hospital could make it a military target — but Israel would have to give hospitals “due warning” and a “reasonable time limit” before any potential retaliation. Plus, the military advantage must be proportionate to the loss of civilian lives. Here’s how that calculus works.
Check out npr.org/mideastupdates for more coverage, differing views and analysis of this conflict.
Palestinians arrive south…
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