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fullscreen The Israeli military has posted its own photos from the raid. Photo: Idf
Israel’s military has carried out another raid on Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa.
According to the military, 20 Hamas members were killed – Palestinian authorities say that civilians lost their lives.
“Hospitals should never be battlefields,” says the World Health Organization’s director at X.
Early Monday morning, the Israeli military (IDF) conducted a large-scale raid on the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
The medical facility is Gaza’s largest, but is only partially functional after several attacks by the Israeli military.
– We are stuck here in the department. A shell has hit the first floor of our building, and several have been injured. A man died, we couldn’t save him. We can only give first aid, we cannot operate because there is neither electricity nor water, described 31-year-old surgeon Amer Jedbeh for the BBC on Monday.
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full screenImages have been released from the Israeli military. Photo: Idf
He also stated that two patients receiving life-sustaining care died because all the machines stopped working when the electricity was cut off before the raid.
– Colleagues in the main building say that there are several injured people there who need surgery, but we cannot reach them and they cannot bring the patients here.
Israel has repeatedly claimed that terror-labelled Hamas controls the hospital building and has command centers in the tunnels – something Hamas denies.
– We know that high-ranking Hamas terrorists have regrouped inside the al-Shifa hospital and are using it to order attacks against Israel, said IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari yesterday.
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full screen Photo: Idf
It was also stated that 20 people were killed and 200 arrested, and described all as Hamas terrorists.
The picture from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health and Palestinian civilians on the ground is another.
– We suddenly heard explosions and bombings, shortly afterwards tanks started rolling in. They came from the western road and drove towards al-Shifa, then we heard gunfire and more explosions,” father-of-two Mohammad Ali, 32, told Reuters news agency.
– It looks like a re-invasion of Gaza City.
Condemned by the WHO
A large number of Palestinians who had taken refuge at al-Shifa were also seen fleeing south.
The Ministry of Health stated that the IDF committed war crimes by attacking hospital buildings without regard for patients, medical staff or internally displaced persons.
It was also described that the explosions caused a fire that led to the death of women and children from suffocation, and that rescue efforts were stopped by shelling from the IDF, The Guardian reports.
Neither the information from the IDF nor the Ministry of Health has been verified via independent sources.
The bloody event was condemned yesterday by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Hospitals should never be battlefields. We are deeply concerned about the situation at al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, which poses a danger to healthcare workers, patients and civilians,” wrote WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on X yesterday.
FACT Background
More than five months have passed since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel in what is being called the worst massacre of Jews in modern times.
Over 1,100 people, mainly Israelis, were killed and 240 people were kidnapped. Over 130 of them are still believed to be with Hamas in Gaza.
The military invasion that Israel launched shortly afterwards against the Gaza Strip – with the aim of exterminating Hamas and bringing back the hostages – has been very bloody. By Palestinians it is called a new Nakba, catastrophe, just like the expulsion of Palestinians that took place in 1948 when the state of Israel was established.
According to the Hamas-controlled health department in Gaza, over 31,000 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed by Israeli attacks, the majority of them women and children. Over 71,000 have been injured.
The UN has also warned several times of famine and over 20 children have died as a result of severe malnutrition.
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