Thousands of Palestinians flee Gaza as fighting nears hospitals

Israel launched air strikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, Gaza officials said, as reported by Reuters.

“The Israeli occupation launched simultaneous strikes on a number of hospitals during the past hours,” Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Al Jazeera, adding that they targeted the courtyard of Al Shifa, the biggest hospital in Gaza City, and there were casualties.

He said the Al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital and Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital were being bombarded on Friday and that strikes on the hospital grounds at Al-Rantisi had set vehicles on fire but were now partly extinguished, Reuters reported.

The Human Rights Watch warned that thousands of patients and displaced Palestinians sheltering at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City face “grave risks”.

Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip continues as its ground forces push deeper into urban areas across the north of the enclave.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has announced that Israel has agreed to suspend fighting for four hours daily to allow Palestinian civilians to flee from northern Gaza. The pauses started Thursday in what the White House said is a step in the right direction.

The war, now in its second month, was triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

The number of Palestinians killed in the war has risen to 10,818, including more than 4,400 children, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said.

In the occupied West Bank, more than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the violence and Israeli raids. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Hamas attack, and about 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group