Middle East leaders hold emergency summit amid siege on Gaza hospital

Leaders from across the Middle East and surrounding region are meeting in Saudi Arabia for an emergency summit on Gaza, as the territory's largest hospital remains encircled by Israeli forces, without power, and with strikes "on everything moving inside the complex", according to staff trapped inside. "We are totally cut off from the whole world, we are minutes away from imminent death," Mohammad abu Salmiya, the head of Dar al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera. The hospital is the largest in the Gaza Strip and the linchpin of the medical system in the besieged territory, as well as now providing shelter to an estimated 15,000 people. A spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces, Lt Col Richard Hecht, denied that Israeli forces had targeted the hospital in a press briefing on Friday. Israeli officials have maintained that Hamas operates from bunkers underneath al-Shifa, accusations that staff at the hospital and members of Hamas strenuously deny. "The IDF does not fire on hospitals ... we are aware of the sensitivity of the hospitals and I am aware of the dynamic at the hospitals," Hecht said. "We are aware that Hamas are operating within the hospitals... We are not dropping bombs on al-Shifa."