One of the longest Israeli hospital raids of the Gaza war stretched right into a fourth day on Thursday, when the military said it had killed dozens of individuals it described as terrorists prior to now 24 hours during operations at Al-Shifa hospital.
Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on Al-Shifa in northern Gaza, the biggest medical facility within the territory, arguing that Hamas was using it as a command center and hiding weapons and fighters there in underground tunnels. Since the most recent attack began on Monday, the Israeli military has reported that greater than 140 people it says were terrorists have died in and across the hospital, excess of in previous raids.
On Thursday, the military said it had also detained 600 people in hospital. The Israeli accounts couldn’t be independently verified.
Al Jazeera news network and Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency, reported on Thursday that Israeli forces blew up the surgery constructing, which is one in all the biggest within the complex. The Israeli military said it didn’t comment on these reports.
Iyad Elejel, who lives about 500 meters from Al-Shifa, said the situation was “very scary”, and in a telephone interview on Thursday he added: “We hear constant sounds of clashes, gunshots, shelling, bombings, quadcopters and planes, all day and all day. night.” Smoke entered the apartment where he stays with 30 relatives, making it difficult to breathe, he said.
Mr. Elejel said the kids within the apartment were getting used to the cacophony. “We try to convince them that the sounds they hear are fireworks, but they don’t believe it,” he said.
No one had been capable of leave the apartment because the raid began, Elejel said, and the family feared they may soon run out of food. He said that when he looked out the window on Thursday morning, he saw “many dead bodies lying on the main street” in front of the home. Israeli soldiers are forcing local residents to go away their apartments and go south, and the district is becoming empty, Elejel said.
In an earlier statement, the military said it was continuing “precise operational operations at Shifa Hospital, eliminating dozens of terrorists in an exchange of fire over the past day.” It also announced that it was stopping harm to civilians and locating weapons storage sites.
Israeli forces carried out a series of raids on medical facilities in Gaza, arguing that Hamas was using them for military purposes. The armed group denied doing so.
Israel made northern Gaza the initial goal of its ground invasion of the enclave, which began on October 27, and first raided a hospital in November. It later provided evidence that Hamas had built a protracted tunnel under the hospital. Subsequent evaluation by The New York Times found that Hamas was using the complex for military purposes. However, the Israeli military tried to prove that Hamas maintained a command and control center under itself.
Even before the present raid began, international aid employees found that the hospital was barely functioning and unable to satisfy essentially the most urgent health care needs in northern Gaza because it had before the conflict.
The World Health Organization had hoped to conduct a mission to the hospital on Thursday to supply fuel and food to staff and patients and to evaluate the situation there, but permission was denied for security reasons, in accordance with Dr. Rik Peeperkorn. , who represents this organization in Gaza and the West Bank.
WHO said it was “very concerned” concerning the situation, adding that employees there couldn’t be contacted.
Earlier this week, Israeli officials said Hamas personnel had returned to the hospital, prompting surgery. Military analysts say Israel’s decision to withdraw most of its forces from the north, partly to give attention to defeating Hamas elsewhere in Gaza, has effectively left a security vacuum.
The initial raid on Al-Shifa became a lightning rod for criticism of Israel over its military operations around hospitals and the threat it poses to patients and medical staff. The raid also became a logo of a broader debate concerning the human cost of Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza, which has killed or injured tens of hundreds of civilians.
Lauren Leatherby reporting contributed.
