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The Israeli army confirmed on Monday that it had withdrawn from the Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, saying it had concluded the military operation that began about two weeks ago and had killed or arrested hundreds of Hamas militants. The hospital is located near the city of Gaza, in the north of the Strip, and is made up of various buildings: some photos and video that are circulating online show that many have been destroyed and are unusable.
Israeli army destroyed completely Al Shifa hospital which is the largest in Gaza . The Israeli goal is to make Gaza unlivable because Netanyahu never gave up his dream of complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The destruction of the hospitals is a grave violation of international Law pic.twitter.com/iSzVqYYFcm
— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) April 1, 2024
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip last October, Israel has accused Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups of using hospitals as military operating bases. However, the attacks carried out in hospitals are highly criticized by the international community: they endanger patients and healthcare personnel, who have already been in enormous difficulty for months due to the lack of water, medicines and medical instruments.
According to the director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, they would be involved in the operation 21 patients died. Other civilians have been killed by the fighting, but it is currently unclear how many because it is likely that some bodies are hidden under the rubble.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli soldiers killed 200 gunmen in the hospital, while Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari he said that 900 people suspected of being terrorists were arrested: the charges were confirmed for 500 of these. It is currently impossible to independently verify the identity of these people and the validity of the accusations against them. Israel said it killed several high-ranking members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and found numerous weapons and intelligence documents from the two organizations in the hospital buildings.
The IDF and Shin Bet forces completed the operation this morning in the area of Shifa Hospital. The forces of Sheitat 13, the combat team of the 401st brigade and the Nahal patrol under the command of the 162nd division left the area of the hospital.
In the center of the Gaza Strip, a combat helicopter attacked a military structure of the terrorist organization Hamas and a cohesive structure directed by Nahal fighters from which the terrorists watched over the forces>> pic.twitter.com/oYZ24tbhjX
— Israel Defense Forces (@idfonline) April 1, 2024
As long as the Israeli army’s attack on the hospital was underway, Israel provided little information on the progress of the operation, but according to reports in various international newspapers, the Israeli army worn out intensely for several days in the corridors and courtyards of the hospital buildings.
In the first days of the attack Amer Jedbeh, a surgeon who works in al Shifa, told BBC that the army had cut electricity and water supplies and was preventing doctors from working normally: «We are trapped in our wards. A missile hit our building on the first floor, injuring many people. A man died and we couldn’t help him. We are only working with first aid equipment, we cannot operate because there is no electricity or water.” he had said on March 18.
The Israeli army said the patients and medical staff were not attacked, and that a safe route had been created to allow them to leave. However, the conditions of many patients made it impossible to move them safely.
Mohammed Mahdi, a Palestinian man who returned to the hospital after the operations ended, he said ad Associated Press that many buildings that made up the hospital burned or collapsed. Taysir al-Tanna, a surgeon who worked at the hospital, he said al New York Times that the emergency room area and the obstetrics and surgery departments were seriously damaged.
The utter destruction of #Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital after the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers is extensive. Hundreds returned to the area after a two-week long Israeli bombardment – and found bodies inside and outside the hospital pic.twitter.com/QEpLY7szfB
— Alex Crawford (@AlexCrawfordSky) April 1, 2024
– Read also: Very little is known about Israel’s attack on the al Shifa hospital in Gaza
On Sunday evening, before the Israeli army announced the end of the siege, Ghebreyesus wrote on X that more than a hundred patients remained in the hospital, including four children and 28 people in critical condition. However, diapers and water were no longer available in the facility.
The hospital had already been attacked by the Israeli army for the first time in November: at that time the evidence provided by the Israeli army to demonstrate the actual presence of Hamas in the hospital was considered quite unsatisfactory. The army had shown videos of tunnels and weapons found under the hospital, but had failed to clearly demonstrate the existence of the large logistical or military center it had spoken of to justify the attack.
Since then, the humanitarian situation in the Strip has worsened further, and the few remaining doctors are faced with a growing number of patients with fewer and fewer resources at their disposal. After the October 7 attack conducted by Hamas against some Israeli cities, the humanitarian aid entering the Strip is not enough to treat and feed its inhabitants, also due to the delays in their entry caused by the long Israeli controls at the border of the Strip.
After the first attack on the hospital, many Palestinian civilians left the north of the Strip, where the city of Gaza is located, to take refuge in the south, and in particular in Rafah, but thousands of people still remained in the north.
– Read also: Is Israel obliged to respect the UN ceasefire resolution?