Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing northern Gaza as Israel’s military pushed deeper into dense urban neighborhoods in its battle with Hamas militants. Officials in the besieged enclave said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 11,000 people.
The search for safety in Gaza is growing more desperate as combat intensifies. Residents who escaped to the south and Palestinian health officials reported strikes in and around Gaza City’s main hospital overnight. Israel said at least one was the result of a misfired Palestinian rocket.
The World Health Organization said Friday that 20 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are no longer functioning, including a pediatric hospital that stopped operations after a reported Israeli strike in the area.
“If there is a hell on earth today, its name is northern Gaza,” the U.N. humanitarian agency spokesperson, Jens Laerke, told reporters in Geneva.
More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since the war began. In the south, they’re crowded into shelters with dwindling supplies of food and water as the war enters its second month.
Gaza City, the largest…
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