Explosions and gunfire rocked the Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army has taken full control of Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza City in what it described as an “anti-terrorist operation.”
Explosions and gunfire rocked the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, Al-Shifa Hospital, and its surroundings as Israeli forces stormed the facilities for the second consecutive day.
The army declared that it had killed 90 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in the medical establishment and its surroundings, and detained “over 300 suspects.” Among the dead was a senior commander of Hamas’s internal security service, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Witnesses described intense exchanges of gunfire around the hospital complex, where thousands of displaced persons are taking refuge and which Israel claims also served as a base of operations for Hamas Islamist militants.
The Gaza Health Ministry accused Israel of committing a war crime with the assault on the hospital, while the Israeli army asserted that Al-Shifa was an Islamist group’s operational center.
Israel began raids on Al-Shifa Hospital earlier this week, claiming that Hamas had regrouped in the compound and was directing attacks from there.
The IDF also claimed to have killed a senior Hamas militant inside the hospital, located in the northern part of the Strip. According to Palestinian officials, he was a senior commander of the police, led by Hamas, who coordinated convoy protection.
Al-Shifa Hospital, like most hospitals in Gaza, has ceased to function due to lack of electricity, fuel, and supplies. The Gaza Health Ministry said that around 30,000 Palestinians were taking refuge there at the time of this week’s raid.
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes continue and caused 104 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. So far, at least 31,819 Palestinians have died in the enclave, and nearly 74,000 have been injured. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attack stands at 1,139, and dozens were captured.
On Monday, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, stated that Israel had denied him entry to the Palestinian enclave.
Lazzarini was scheduled to visit the Strip on Monday to enhance coordination and humanitarian response. “We are monitoring this man-made famine that is a stain on our collective humanity,” Lazzarini wrote in X.
On Tuesday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi would travel to Washington to discuss the ground offensive in Rafah, which Biden had requested be suspended.
