Hamas to free 70 women, children in exchange for a five-day truce

GAZA, Nov 14 (Reuters/AFP/AP): Israeli tanks advanced on Monday to the gates of Gaza City's main hospital, a chief target in Israel's battle against Hamas, as US President Joe Biden said hospitals must be protected and he hoped for less intrusive Israeli action.

Separately, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group said it was ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in exchange for a five-day truce in the war triggered by Hamas' Oct 7 rampage into southern Israel.

Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra, who was inside Al Shifa hospital, said 32 patients had died in the last three days, including three newborn babies, as a result of the siege of the hospital in northern Gaza and a lack of power.

At least 650 patients were still inside, desperate to be evacuated to another medical facility. Israel says the hospital sits atop tunnels housing a headquarters for Hamas fighters using patients as shields, which Hamas denies.

Mass grave inside Gaza hospital

Encircled by Israeli forces

Palestinians trapped inside Gaza's biggest hospital were digging a mass grave on Tuesday to bury patients who died under Israeli encirclement, and said no plan was in place to evacuate babies despite Israel announcing an offer to send portable incubators.

Israeli forces have surrounded Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which they say sits atop an underground headquarters of Hamas militants.

Hamas, Gaza's ruling Islamist group, denies fighters are present and says 650 patients and 5,000-7,000 other displaced civilians are trapped inside the hospital grounds, under constant fire from snipers and drones.

Israeli tanks at Gaza hospital's

gates, Biden urges protection

Tanks were massed near the gates of Gaza's main hospital where Palestinians were trapped in dire conditions on Tuesday as US President Joe Biden pressed Israel to protect the complex.

After days of heavy air strikes around Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, witnesses said tanks and armoured vehicles were metres (yards) from 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 displaced civilians-may be inside and unable to escape because of fierce fighting nearby.

Humanitarian crisis worsens

in southern Gaza

Another 200,000 people have fled northern Gaza since Nov. 5, the U.N. humanitarian office said Tuesday, as Israeli ground forces battle Palestinian militants around hospitals where patients, newborns and medics are stranded with no electricity and dwindling supplies.

The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, says only one hospital in the north is capable of receiving patients. All the others are no longer able to function and mostly serve as shelters from the fighting, including Gaza's largest, Shifa, which is surrounded by Israeli troops and where 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.