Heavy fighting continues around Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, where Israeli forces engage Hamas militants after seizing the strategically located medical complex in an early morning raid.
Witnesses reported multiple airstrikes and heavy gunfire amid growing concerns for the safety of hundreds of civilians in the immediate vicinity of the hospital.
Israeli military officials said their forces were “continuing precise operations at Shifa Hospital to prevent terrorism,” and that Hamas militants, including Faik Mahbou, identified as the head of Hamas’s Internal Security Operations Directorate, He said he killed 20 sectarians there. At least 80 people were captured by Israeli forces and one soldier was killed in the attack.
Israeli officials said the raid was based on “intelligence information indicating that senior Hamas terrorists used the hospital to direct attacks.”
Separately, Joe Biden spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since mid-February. The White House announced that the US president and Israeli prime minister discussed the situation in Rafah and efforts to increase aid to Gaza.
Netanyahu said the two men, whose relations are increasingly strained, discussed Israel’s commitment to achieving all the goals it set in the war. Free all hostages. and to ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
This will be done “while providing the necessary humanitarian assistance to help achieve these goals,” Netanyahu added.
Fighting and devastation in northern Gaza has forced thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge in Shifa, where they are living in makeshift tents on the grounds. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed deep concern about the fighting, saying it was “putting health workers, patients and civilians at risk”.
“We are very concerned about the situation at Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza,” he wrote to X. “Hospitals should never become battlefields.”
An Al Jazeera reporter was beaten and arrested along with other journalists, the Qatar-based television network reported.
Witnesses said Gaza City’s al-Rimal neighborhood, where the hospital is located, described the beginning of the Israeli operation.
“Suddenly we started hearing explosions, several bombs, and then tanks started moving,” Mohammad Ali, a 32-year-old father of two who lives just over a mile from the hospital, said via a chat app. told Reuters. “They were coming from the western road and heading toward Al Shifa, but then the sound of gunshots and explosions got louder.
“We don’t know what’s going on, but it was like a re-invasion of Gaza City,” he added.
Hamas said Israeli forces committed new crimes by directly targeting hospital buildings, with no regard for hospital patients, medical staff or displaced residents.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said the attack caused a fire at the entrance to the complex, resulting in cases of suffocation among displaced women and children in the hospital.
The ministry accused the Israeli military of “new crimes against medical institutions” and said: “There have been casualties, including casualties, but due to the intensity of the fire and its targeting of those approaching the windows, no one can be rescued. is not possible.”
The claims by Health Ministry officials, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and Hamas could not be independently verified.
In the morning, the IDF distributed leaflets and used social media to tell civilians They immediately leave their homes and head along Gaza’s coast road to al-Mwasi, an area 18 miles (30 kilometers) south that has been designated a “humanitarian island” by Israel.
Transportation facilities are extremely limited in Gaza, and many residents of Gaza City, especially children and the elderly, have been debilitated for months without adequate food. It was not immediately clear how many people would be able to follow Israeli instructions, even if the ongoing fighting allowed safe passage.
Israel’s attack on Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, in November drew international condemnation, but this new operation is an attempt by Israel to achieve its declared war objective of “crushing Hamas.” It highlighted the difficulties faced in Gaza.
Since February, the IDF has returned to fighting in parts of the region that were believed to have been cleared of Hamas militants after heavy fighting last year. Gaza City residents told the Guardian this month that very few Israeli troops were stationed in the devastated streets, but had retreated to positions on the outskirts and at major road intersections.
Israeli forces have attacked numerous hospitals in the Gaza Strip during a military operation launched in response to a surprise attack on southern Israel by Hamas, with the militants killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and leaving around 250 others dead. was taken hostage.
Although the intensity of attacks has eased somewhat in recent weeks, the death toll continues to rise. Israel’s operations against Hamas have killed at least 31,645 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of carrying out military operations from hospitals and other medical centers and using civilians as human shields. The extremist group denies these claims.
After raiding Shifa in November, the Israeli military said it had discovered hidden weapons and military equipment there, as well as a 55-metre underground tunnel. The IDF has shared footage proving hostages were being held, a claim Hamas also denies.
Evidence produced by the IDF showed that a long, reinforced tunnel ran deep beneath the hospital, but that the militant group had built a well-equipped command center in several interconnected bunkers beneath the hospital. It does not seem to support the claims made earlier. identified.
On Monday, the IDF announced that “a large number of weapons, as well as funds intended for distribution to Hamas terrorist operatives… were found in the hospital.”
Aid agencies have been working for weeks to restore services in Shifa, but getting equipment and supplies into northern Gaza has proven difficult. Many humanitarian organizations have accused Israel of deliberately delaying deliveries through arbitrary checks, opaque decision-making and cumbersome bureaucracy, accusations that Israeli authorities vehemently deny.
The attack came amid hopes that a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel could be agreed in new talks expected to begin in the coming days.
