Israel’s president denies it is striking Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital

The greatest hospital in Gaza is not being targeted by Israel, according to Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Employee reports at Al-Shifa imply that the facility, which provides refuge to thousands of Palestinians, is without power.

However, Mr. Herzog stated that “everything is operating” at the medical facility.

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg he also alleged a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf was recovered on the body of a Hamas militant in northern Gaza.

A copy that had been translated into Arabic, according to Mr. Herzog, was discovered “just a few days ago” in a kids’ room that had been “turned into a military operation base of Hamas”.

The antisemitic manifesto of the Nazi leader was originally published in 1925.

Mr. Herzog claimed that discovering a duplicate of it in northern Gaza demonstrated how certain Hamas members “learned again and again Adolf Hitler’s ideology of hating the Jews”.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that because of violence outside, workers and patients at Al-Shifa are confined and it has lost contact with its contacts there.

In Gaza, medical professionals and the health ministry headed by Hamas have stated that a shortage of fuel prevents patients from undergoing surgery and prevents premature baby incubators from operating. The president, however, denied this.

“We deny this at all, there is a lot of spin by Hamas… but there’s electricity in Shifa, everything is operating,” stated Herzog.

Hamas has refuted Israel’s assertion that it has a base beneath the hospital structure.

Water, food, and electricity had ran out at the hospital, according to surgeon Marwan Abu Saada, who spoke with the BBC on Saturday.

According to him, there were gunshots and bombardments “every second” in the hospital.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, stated that Israel would assist in the evacuation of infants from Al-Shifa at the hospital’s request. On Saturday, a group of doctors announced that two premature newborns had already passed away.

When questioned about the mounting calls for a ceasefire, which have come from President Macron of France among others, Mr. Herzog defended Israel’s right to self-defense in the wake of the October 7 attacks.

“We of course listen to our allies, but first and foremost, we defend ourselves,” he stated.

Although he admitted that civilians had died in Gaza, he held Hamas responsible for a large number of the killings.

According to Mr. Herzog, Israel is informing residents by phone calls and text messages, advising them to leave from northern Gaza and “go down [to southern Gaza]”. His country’s activities in Gaza are being conducted “according to the rules of international humanitarian law”.

“We give them humanitarian pauses so that they can go down [south],” stated Herzog.

The health ministry, which is managed by Hamas, claims that since the beginning of the conflict, more than 11,000 people have died in Gaza. Additionally, about 1.5 million people are displaced, according to UNRWA, the organization that represents Palestinian refugees.

Following the catastrophic onslaught by Hamas on October 7, which resulted in 1,200 deaths and more than 200 hostages being taken from southern Israel, Israel began an offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The 41 km (25 miles) long and 10 km wide enclave has seen intense fighting in its northern region, but explosions have also struck the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.