ISRAELI forces have raided al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, following days of heavy attacks in the area surrounding the complex in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said early on Wednesday morning that it was carrying out an “operation against Hamas in a specified area” at al-Shifa. Calling the assault a “targeted operation” on Gaza’s largest medical facility, it said the raid was based on Israeli and United States intelligence.
Israel accuses Hamas, the group that governs Gaza, of using the hospital as a base. Hamas rejects the claim. Israel has not produced evidence to back up its assertion.
Dozens of Israeli soldiers entered the facility while tanks were stationed in the courtyard of the medical complex, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said, reporting from Khan Younis on Wednesday. According to health officials, there are about 650 patients, including 22 in intensive care and 36 premature babies, at al-Shifa Hospital, in addition to some 400 medical staff and more than 2,000 displaced people.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, the general director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces searched the basement of al-Shifa and entered the surgical and emergency buildings within the complex.
According to sources inside al-Shifa, Israeli soldiers are using loudspeakers and ordering young men to surrender themselves. About 30 people were reportedly taken out into the courtyard, stripped of their clothes, blindfolded and interrogated by Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces have also blown up a warehouse of medicine and medical devices, sources said.
Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a surgeon inside the facility, said heavy gunfire and explosions could be heard in the compound.
“It’s a totally scary time; it’s a horrible time for the families, the civilians sheltering in the hospital with their kids. It’s terrible for the staff who are taking care of their patients and the patients themselves,” he told Al Jazeera.
About 700 patients remain at the hospital, including about 100 in critical condition, Mokhallalati reported. More than 1,000 medical staff are also trapped on site, but they are unable to treat patients due to a shortage of medicine and fuel.
Thousands of civilians displaced by Israel’s five-week bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 11,200 Palestinians, are also inside al-Shifa Hospital. There were no indications that any of the more than 200 people who were taken captives during Hamas’s attack on October 7, which killed some 1,200 people, were held at al-Shifa.
Mokhallalati described the fear that has taken hold among the staff, patients and displaced trapped in the facility.
“We don’t know what they will do to us. We don’t know whether they will kill people or terrorise them. We know all the propaganda is lies, and they know as well as we do that there is nothing at al-Shifa medical centre.”
