Israeli forces attacked al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, after days of violent attacks in the area surrounding the Gaza City compound.
The Israeli military said early Wednesday morning that it was carrying out an “operation against Hamas in a specified area” in al-Shifa. Calling the attack a “targeted operation” against Gaza’s largest medical center, the newspaper said the raid was based on Israeli and US intelligence.
Israel accuses Hamas, the group that governs Gaza, of using the hospital as a base. Hamas rejects this assertion. Israel has produced no evidence to support its claim.
Dozens of Israeli soldiers entered the facility as tanks were parked in the medical complex’s courtyard, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said, reporting from Khan Younis on Wednesday. The raid “is considered very risky and dangerous because inside the hospital there are around 7,500 Palestinians, including patients, doctors and displaced people,” he said.
Dr. Munir al-Bursh, director general of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces searched the basement of al-Shifa and entered the surgical and emergency buildings of the complex .
Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a surgeon inside the facility, reported that heavy gunfire and explosions could be heard within the compound. “We saw the (Israeli) tanks and bulldozers on the central campus,” he told Al Jazeera.
About 700 patients remain in hospital, including around 100 in critical condition, Mokhallalati reported. More than 1,000 medical staff are also stranded there, but they cannot treat patients due to lack of medicine and fuel.
Thousands of civilians displaced by Israel’s five-week bombardment of Gaza, which killed more than 11,200 Palestinians, are also at al-Shifa hospital.
Mokhallalati described the fear that gripped the thousands of people trapped in the facility. “We don’t know what they are going to do to us. We don’t know if they will kill people or terrorize them. We know that all the propaganda is lies, and they know as well as we do that there is nothing at al-Shifa Medical Center.
“Barbaric crime”
The area around al-Shifa has been hit by multiple Israeli attacks for weeks. The Israeli government has issued warnings to evacuate the facility. However, Palestinian medical officials rejected the order, saying they could not leave their patients behind.
Amid the raid, Palestinian Authority Health Minister Dr. Mai al-Kaila said in a statement published by the Palestinian Wafa news agency that Israeli forces “are committing a new crime against humanity, medical personnel and patients”.
The Palestinian government holds Israeli forces “responsible for the lives of medical staff, patients and displaced people in the al-Shifa compound”, she added.
Hamas said it held Israel and US President Joe Biden responsible for the implications of the raid, calling it a “barbaric crime against a medical facility protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
“The Israeli occupation and all those who collaborated with it to kill children, patients and innocent civilians will be held accountable,” the group said in a statement.
The United States said it “has information” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were using Gaza hospitals, including al-Shifa, “to conceal and support their military operations and to hold hostages.” .
At the same time, Washington continued to offer words of caution, Reuters reported.
A White House National Security Council spokesperson said: “We do not support an aerial attack on a hospital and we do not want to see a firefight at a hospital where innocent, defenseless people , sick people trying to get medical care. deserve are caught in the crossfire.
Hamas has denied using Gaza hospitals as a base and called on the United Nations to send independent investigators to verify that Israel’s claims are “lies.”
Ardi Imseis, an international law expert at Queen’s University in Canada, said the onus is on Israel to “produce evidence” and prove its claim that the hospital was used by Hamas as a base.
“The object of the attack is civilian property. Until the Israelis provide proof that it has been converted into a military object, the civilian nature of the object does not change,” he said.
Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, told Al Jazeera that “the Israeli government has not presented any evidence that would justify stripping hospitals of their special protections under international humanitarian law.”
Even if Israel’s justifications for attacking hospitals are taken “at face value,” Shakir said, “international humanitarian law only permits the attack on hospitals if space is provided for evacuation in completely safe.”
He added: “The reality here is that there is no safe place to go in Gaza. »