GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

A race against time tonight in Northern Gaza, as just one hospital remains operational.

Vulnerable and critical patients are still being treated at several hospitals, locations that the U.S. today said Hamas is using for military purposes.

AMNA NAWAZ: American officials said today that U.S. intelligence shows that Hamas is indeed using patients in those hospitals as human shields, but that the civilians within them must be protected.

The president also said that he believes a deal will be struck to free hostages held in Gaza, including Americans, saying: "Hang in.

We are coming."

Leila Molana-Allen is in Tel Aviv tonight.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: A moment of lightness amid the horror, as children play in Gaza's first winter rains.

But for their parents, like Fayeza, the cold season brings a whole host of new worries in displacement and deprivation.

FAYEZA SROUR, Displaced From Northern Gaza (through translator): Winter is a nightmare.

In the past, I used to wish for the winter to arrive.

But, right now, I pray every day for it not to rain, that we are living in tents, nothing that protects us.

When the rain falls, we will drown.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: As Gazans continue to flee south, trying to escape Israel's ground invasion in the north, the humanitarian crisis for displaced Palestinians only grows.

There is aid trickling slowly into Gaza, but without fuel to power trucks and forklifts, it can't get to those who need it most.

The Al Salam flour mill is the last working mill in Gaza.

And even if there is wheat available to make bread, it can't be baked in large quantities without power.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed more than a dozen homes yesterday in the Jabalia refugee camp in Northern Gaza.

Hamas-affiliated media said more than 30 Palestinians were killed.

At the Al Shifa Hospital complex, dozens of bodies lie waiting.

Gaza's victims find no peace, even in death.

The hospital is now digging mass graves as bodies start to decompose.

The hardest hit are also the youngest.

With no power, incubators have failed.

And more than 30 premature babies are struggling to survive.

Three have already died.

In a statement today, international medical relief organization Doctors Without Borders said bullets were fired into one of their three premises near Al Shifa, where more than 100 of their staff and family members are taking shelter.

DR. FADEL NAIM, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital: The situation in the health system in Gaza is catastrophic.

We can say that the health system collapsed.

In Gaza City, the only functioning hospital Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

Our hospital is a small hospital.

It's not prepared to be a war or a trauma center.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Dr. Fadel Naim is a surgeon at the Al-Ahli hospital.

It was hit by an explosion October 17 that caused global outrage.

Israel and Hamas traded blame.

With limited connectivity, Dr. Fadel sent us these audio messages from Al-Ahli Hospital.

DR. FADEL NAIM: The central blood bank is in the north and the western part of Gaza around Al Shifa Hospital.

And this area is surrounded by Israeli tankers.

Nobody can reach this area.

Therefore, we have big difficulties.

Many patients died because of bleeding.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: As Israel's ground operations intensify, North Gaza's sole functioning hospital is overburdened and understaffed.

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITTA, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital: We are a small hospital with two operating rooms and three surgeons.

We have no access to neurosurgery and we have over 500 wounded.

So the situation is extremely bleak and we keep getting wave after wave of the wounded.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: DR. Ghassan Abu Sitta is a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon who returned to Gaza to treat the wounded.

He's at Al-Ahli, where we spoke to him over the phone.

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITTA: I continued going back and forth between Ahli and Shifa, trying to decrease the pressure on Shifa Hospital by bringing patients here.

And then Shifa collapsed and this became Gaza's only hospital and became a field hospital for over 500 wounded with very limited resources.

It's been a spiral of unsurmountable difficulties with decreasing resources.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The White House said today they have intelligence that Gazan militants shelter in hospitals, but said patients must be protected.

In the occupied West Bank, an Israeli drone strike and raid killed at least eight Palestinians.

Mourners took to the streets for the funerals, then reckoning with the destruction wrought by the raid.

Israeli politicians and Knesset members Danny Danon and Ram Ben-Barak published an op-ed calling on other countries to take in Gazan refugees.

Far right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich agreed and said the state of Israel could not accept an independent Gaza, inflaming Palestinian fears of another Nakba, or catastrophe.

Abla Awad was 5 years old during the first Nakba, the Palestinian name for the 1948 founding of the Israeli state, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled and were driven from their homes.

ABLA AWAD, Displaced Palestinian (through translator): I was a little girl, and now we're living the same thing now.

The same thing is happening again.

Ever since I can remember, since I was 5 years old, I have been witnessing wars.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The U.S. and other countries call for a peaceful two-state solution.

That vision of the future is further than ever from reality.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Leila Molana-Allen in Tel Aviv.