(ASSOCIATED PRESS) Israeli forces pressed their offensive against Hamas in northern Gaza on Monday, battling militants around a hospital where thousands of patients and displaced people have been sheltering for weeks, and where health officials began planning the possible evacuation of dozens of wounded.
A medical worker inside the facility and the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a shell struck the second floor of the Indonesian Hospital, killing 12 people. Both blamed Israel, which denied shelling the hospital, saying its troops returned fire on militants who targeted them from inside the 3.5-acre compound.
The advance came as 28 premature babies evacuated from Gaza City's Shifa Hospital by the World Health Organization were transported to Egypt on Monday. Three others were transferred to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza, the Red Crescent said. More than 250 critically ill or wounded patients remain stranded at the compound that Israeli forces stormed days ago.
Gaza's hospitals play a prominent role in the battle of narratives over the war's brutal toll on Palestinian civilians, thousands of whom have been killed or buried in rubble since the conflict was sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel. In the wake of the assault, Israeli leaders vowed to eradicate Hamas, destroy its ability to rule Gaza and uproot its militant infrastructure.
Israel says Hamas uses civilians as human shields and that it operated a major command hub inside and beneath Shifa, a claim hospital officials and Hamas deny. Critics say Israel's siege and relentless bombardment amount to collective punishment of the territory's 2.3 million Palestinians.
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