WASHINGTON —Kansas U.S. Senator Jerry Moran is back in Washington after traveling to Israel over the weekend to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Gallant to show America's support for Israel.
The Senator also had the opportunity to meet with families who have loved ones still being held hostage by Hamas, according to a statement on his social media account.
Meanwhile, fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants outside Gaza's largest hospital Monday prompted thousands of people to flee from the sprawling medical facility, but hundreds of patients and others displaced by the war remained inside, health officials said Monday.
President Biden said Shifa hospital “must be protected” and called for “less intrusive action” by Israeli forces.
Shifa hospital has been without electricity and water for three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday. He said there has been gunfire and bombings outside the compound.
Patients there include dozens of babies at risk of dying because of a lack of electricity, health officials at the facility said.
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 Oct. 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.
More than 1,200 people in Israel died, most of them in the Hamas attack, and about 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by Palestinian militants.
-The Associated Press contributed to this report