Fighting rages around two Gaza hospitals as pressure on Israel increases

Israeli forces are fighting to retake areas they had already captured, demonstrating militants' resilience, as critics call for war tactics less destructive.

Israeli troops and Hamas fighters waged deadly fighting in and around two of the Gaza Strip's main hospitals on Thursday, as the government Israel was under increasing pressure, at home and abroad, to moderate its approach to a war that has devastated the enclave.

The fighting has been raging for the 11th day at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, in an area that Israeli forces first seized in November. The clashes illustrate the difficulty Israelis have in maintaining control of places they had already taken while Palestinian militants disappear and then return.

In Israel, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, increasingly unpopular and facing criticism on several fronts, met for the first time with the families of kidnapped soldiers held in Gaza, who accused him before the meeting of ignoring their plight for nearly six months. Relatives of the soldiers had remained largely silent in public while other families of captives spoke out, many saying the prime minister should agree to a truce with Hamas if that was what it took to free their loved ones.

But there has been no apparent change in Israel's determination to continue its offensive in Gaza, despite pressure from, among others, families hostages, the Biden administration and the United Nations, where the Security Council adopted a resolution on Monday demanding a ceasefire. After vetoing previous ceasefire resolutions, the United States abstained on Monday, allowing the measure to pass and signaling its dissatisfaction with Israel's conduct of the war.

The International Court of Justice Justice in The Hague on Thursday ordered Israel to take concrete measures to stop obstructing humanitarian aid to Gaza as famine spreads there , calling on Israel to increase the number of land crossings for supplies and provide “full cooperation” with the United Nations. The ruling contains the strongest language the court has used so far in considering a complaint filed by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, which Israel denies.

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