MSNBC Airs Heartbreaking Video of Gaza Newborns Removed From Incubators Due To Lack of Electricity

MSNBC aired heartbreaking video of premature babies removed from their non-functioning incubators at Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa.

On Monday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, correspondent Raf Sanchez said Israel’s bombing campaign against Gaza has rendered the hospital “effectively no longer functional,” without running water or electricity.

“There’s some 600 patients inside the hospital, Andrea, but no case is more urgent than the dozens of prematurely born babies who were being held in the neonatal unit there,” Sanchez said. He continued:

Those newborns, some of them younger than this war itself, have been taken out of their incubators. They were, last we heard, being held in the surgery unit at Al-Shifa Hospital. Dozens of tiny, tiny Gazans on two beds being kept together, swaddled to try to keep them warm. In some cases, medical officials respirating them with their hands trying to keep them breathing. Basically, doing everything they can to keep them alive.

Sanchez said at least three premature babies have died so far. He also noted that Israeli troops said they delivered fuel to the hospital to keep the lights on but that hospital officials “would not accept that fuel.”

CNN reported that some of the babies “are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive in ‘catastrophic’ conditions.” The report added:

An Israeli military spokesperson told CNN on Saturday its forces were engaged in “ongoing intense fighting” against Hamas in the vicinity of the hospital complex, but denied firing at the northern Gaza medical center and rejected suggestions the hospital is under siege.

Israel has repeatedly claimed there is a Hamas command center underneath Al-Shifa hospital, which Hamas and hospital officials have denied. The Israeli military has also previously accused Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure. CNN cannot independently verify the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) claims.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed the IDF was doing what it could to minimize civilian deaths.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.