Two and a half weeks after sending tanks and ground troops into northern Gaza, Israeli forces attacked al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of patients and displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
Mohammed Zaqout, director of Gaza’s hospitals, said Israeli tanks were inside the medical complex on Wednesday and soldiers entered buildings, including the emergency and surgical wards.
The Israeli military says Hamas uses hospitals as cover for its fighters and has set up a command center in and below al-Shifa, the largest medical facility in the besieged territory. Hamas and hospital staff deny Israeli allegations.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s attention is also focused on parts of southern Gaza, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said, reporting from Khan Younis. “In the last hours, three residential houses in the town of Khan Younis were bombed,” he said Wednesday evening.
As clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters rage in eastern Gaza, Israeli soldiers are trying to move “deeper” into the south of the Strip, he said.
These are “terrible people,” Abu Azzoum added, many of whom fled their homes in the northern and central areas of Gaza for what Israel considers safer areas in the south.
Gaza’s health ministry is struggling to update casualty figures as Israeli forces increasingly target allied hospitals and services in the besieged enclave.
At least 14 people were killed and dozens injured in three major strikes on Wednesday. Two of the strikes targeted houses in Khan Younis and the third targeted a house in the central Gaza region. At least three people were killed in an attack on Salhi residential towers in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
More than 11,200 Palestinians – two-thirds of them women and minors – have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7. Around 2,700 people were reported missing.