New Delhi: Israeli troops entered Gaza’s biggest medical facility, the Al-Shifa Hospital, early Wednesday to conduct a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas”, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said later in the day.
Israel believes the hospital sits on top of a maze of tunnels that is used by Hamas as one of its headquarters. Hamas has denied this claim.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on X that the soldiers were in a particular complex “for which there is intelligence indicating terrorist activity by Hamas”.
“Before entering the hospital, our forces encountered explosives and terrorist squads and a fight ensued… terrorists were eliminated,” Hagari said.
כוחות צה״ל פועלים בשעה זו באופן ממוקד בית החולים שיפאא. הפעילות מתקיימת במתחם מוגדר אשר לגביו קיים מידע מודיעיני המעיד על פעילות טרור של ארגון הטרור חמאס ובהתאם לצורך מבצעי.
בטרם נכנסו לבית החולים נתקלו כוחותינו במטענים וחוליות מחבלים והתפתחה לחימה ממנה חוסלו מחבלים >> pic.twitter.com/gpFciYUbbO
— דובר צה״ל דניאל הגרי – Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) November 15, 2023
Hours after storming the facility, the IDF in a separate post on X said that “incubators, baby food and medical supplies, provided by the IDF, have successfully reached the hospital”.
“Our medical team and Arabic-speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need.” The IDF also posted photos of these supplies, with boxes labelled “baby food” and “medical supplies”.
The IDF’s precise and targeted operation against Hamas in the Shifa Hospital is still ongoing.
We can now confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies, provided by the IDF, have successfully reached the hospital.
Our medical team and Arabic speaking soldiers are on… pic.twitter.com/9iMx41OaHV
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 15, 2023
Israel’s decision to send troops into Gaza’s hospitals has escalated its offensive and fuelled renewed calls for a ceasefire. Israel maintains that Hamas, which controls Gaza, is using hospitals as a front to operate its network.
According to the latest from the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, there were about 2,500 people inside the al-Shifa hospital when the IDF entered.
These include medical teams, patients — among them 600 wounded and 36 newborns — and displaced people sheltering at the hospital.
Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, told AP that Israeli tanks were in the medical compound and that soldiers had entered buildings, including the emergency and surgery departments, which house intensive care units.
“The occupation forces stormed the buildings,” he was quoted as saying. He said the patients, including children, were terrified. “They are screaming. It’s a very terrifying situation… we can do nothing for the patients but pray.
Doha-based Al Jazeera reported that during the raid, Israeli soldiers asked those sheltering to gather in the courtyard in preparation for evacuation from the medical complex.
It said that soldiers had raided the hospital’s main buildings, the emergency department, the specialised surgeries department and the maternity ward as well, under the cover of heavy gunfire and tank shells.
They searched the hospital room by room and corridor by corridor, and interrogated doctors and medical staff, the report said.
The network said the Israeli army had also “set up electronic checkpoints at multiple doors of the main buildings of the hospital and they are calling people inside, whether they are the medical team, patients, the injured – they have to go through these electronic gates where they can be officially interrogated by the Israeli military”.
According to the World Health Organization, 22 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals — more than 60 per cent — are “non-functional” after Israel cut off water, electricity and fuel in retaliation to Hamas’s rampaging assault on its southern communities on 7 October. Israel estimates that Hamas’s attack had killed around 1,200 and led to about 240 people being taken hostage, mostly civilians.
Following the early October attack, Israel has mounted a relentless aerial and ground invasion of the coastal strip that has flattened swathes of Gaza, displaced half of its 2.3 million population, and killed over 11,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.
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