Gaza Strip - With tanks massed at the gates of Gaza's largest hospital, US President Joe Biden pressed Israelis to protect civilians, who on Tuesday were trapped inside with dwindling supplies of fuel and water.
After days of heavy air strikes around Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, witnesses said tanks and armoured vehicles were metres from the gate of the besieged facility, which has become a focal point of the five-week-old war.
The United Nations believes that thousands, and perhaps more than 10,000 people -- patients, staff, and the displaced -- may be inside and unable to escape because of fierce fighting nearby.
Amid reports of incubated babies dying for lack of electricity and patients facing sniper fire, a surgeon working for Doctors Without Borders said the situation inside the hospital had become "very bad". "We don't have electricity. There's no water in the hospital. There's no food," said the doctor, who was not named by his organisation.
Gaza government's deputy health minister Youssef Abu Rish, who is present in the hospital, said about 20,000 displaced people had sought refuge there.
The health ministry in Gaza says Israel's assault has already killed 11,240 people, including 4,630 children. International aid agencies speak of hundreds of thousands of people displaced and a rolling humanitarian catastrophe.
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