<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>The Israeli army claimed on Tuesday it had captured Gaza’s parliament building and other government institutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in the besieged Pales­tinian enclave.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>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 claimed in a statement.</div><div><br></div><div>Hamas dismissed the Isr­aeli army’s claim that it had taken over institutions.</div><div><br></div><div>The move was a “pathetic attempt to manufacture victory and imaginary control of empty places or those previously targeted and destroyed”, Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement.</div><div><br></div><div>Meanwhile, the director of Gaza’s main hospital said the facility had been forced to bury scores of dead patients in a mass grave, while thousands of Palestinians were trapped inside.</div><div><br></div><div>While Israeli forces were at the gates of the sprawling Al Shifa Hospi­tal, patients and people see­king shelter were str­anded in horrific conditions.</div><div><br></div><div>“There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the morgues,” said Al Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya, adding 179 bodies had been interred so far.</div><div><br></div><div>“We were forced to bury them in a mass grave,” he said, adding that seven babies and 29 intensive care patients were among those who had died after fuel for the hospital’s generator ran out.</div><div><br></div><div>The United Nations estimates that 2,300 people — patients, staff and displaced civilians — are inside and may be unable to escape from the facility.</div><div><br></div><div>The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza put the death toll from Israel’s relentless assault at 11,240 people, mostly civilians, including thousands of children.</div><div><br></div><div>Israel’s military says 47 of its troops have been killed in Gaza.</div><div><br></div><div>Al Shifa’s fate has become a major focus of the more than five-week crisis, which has stirred international criticism of the suffering and death inflicted on civilians in the besieged territory. - Reuters/Dawn</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>