Gaza Parliament, other Hamas government buildings seized: Israel Army

The Israeli army said Tuesday it had taken over the Parliament and other government insitutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in territory. Military units “took over the Hamas parliament, the government building, the Hamas police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons,” the army said in a statement, according to the media reports.
 

Israel uncovers alleged Hamas tunnel connected to Gaza's hospital 
 

As pressure mount on Israel over its ground operation near the al-Shifa hospital, the Israeli military has released a purported video of what it claimed a Hamas-operated tunnel that leads to Gaza’s Rantisi hospital amid criticism that their ground operations have left medical facilities inoperative in the blockaded strip, media reports stated. 
 

The video has been released by the IDF following massive international pressure on Israel. 
 

The tunnel is next to the house of a Hamas operative who heads the naval operations of Hamas that led the October 7 raids on Israel, said a military spokesperson.
 

The tunnel is electrified and leads to a bulletproof and explosives-proof door about 20 metres down the ground level, he said. “It looks like clear evidence that the hospital is connected,” he added.
 

But Hamas has denied the claim. In a statement on its Telegram channel, Hamas said the video showed “fabricated scenes that misled public opinion”, adding that it was a “failed attempt” by Israel to justify the targeting of hospitals.
 

On Monday, Israeli tanks were positioned outside the gates of Al Shifa hospital, the main hospital in Gaza where hundreds of patients were still waiting to be evacuated.
 

As the invasion has proceeded, Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian infrastructure to hide command centres and weapons positions and of using civilians and hospital patients as human shields.
 

79 people, including babies, buried in a mass grave
 

Gaza’s biggest hospital has buried 179 people, including babies, in a “mass grave” inside its compound, Al Shifa Hospital chief Mohammad Abu Salmiyah said Tuesday, underlining the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the region. “We were forced to bury them in a mass grave,” the hospital director said.
 

Seven babies and 29 patients from the intensive care unit were buried after the hospital's fuel supplies ran out. “There are bodies littered in the hospital complex. There is no more electricity...”, he added
 

The Israeli military said it was coordinating the transfer of incubators into Gaza, in a possible measure to enable the evacuation of newborn babies from the hospital.
 

Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra, who was inside Al Shifa hospital, said on Monday 32 patients had died in the previous three days, including three newborns. At least 650 patients remain inside, he added.
 

Since Israel declared war against Hamas in response to a deadly cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7, its forces have moved in on Shifa. While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, Palestinians say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees and that it is too dangerous to move the most vulnerable patients. Meanwhile, doctors say the facility has run out of fuel and that patients are beginning to die.
 

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains grim with hundreds of patients trapped in the hospital without electricity and water, besides thousands others who have taken shelter in those complexes.
 

US President Joe Biden has urged Israel to protect the Al-Shifa hospital.
 

“My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals and we remain in contact with the Israelis,”Biden told reporters on Monday.

“Also there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that's being negotiated, as well, with the Qataris ... being engaged,” he added. “So I remain somewhat hopeful but hospitals must be protected.”
 

Meanwhile, fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in northern Gaza caused another 200,000 people to flee south in the past 10 days, he UN humanitarian office said on Tuesday.
 

The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said only one hospital in the north is capable of treating patients.
 

Hamas loses control of Gaza Strip

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said Hamas has “lost control” of the Gaza Strip that it has ruled for 16 years, AFP reported.
 

“Hamas has lost control of Gaza. Terrorists are fleeing southward. Civilians are looting Hamas bases,” he said without providing evidence. “They don’t have faith in the government anymore,” Gallant added in a video broadcast on Israel’s main TV stations.

Israel carries out frequent airstrikes against what it says are militant targets that often kill women and children.
 

More than two-thirds of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since the war began.
 

Gaza City, the largest urban area in the territory, is the focus of Israel's campaign to crush Hamas following the militant group's deadly October 7 incursion into southern Israel that set off the war.
 

More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the 

Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. 
 

About 2,700 people have been reported missing.