© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A satellite image shows Al-Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Gaza November 11, 2023. Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli troops entered Gaza’s largest hospital on Wednesday and searched its rooms and basement, witnesses said, in pursuit of Palestinian Hamas militants, an operation that fueled the global concern over the fate of thousands of civilians trapped inside.
Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has become the main target of the incursion into territory by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters have located the “beating heart” of their operations in a headquarters in tunnels underneath, which Hamas denies.
Israel said its troops discovered unspecified weapons and “terrorist infrastructure” inside the hospital compound after killing militants in a clash outside. Once inside, they said there was no fighting or friction with civilians, patients or staff.
Welcoming his forces’ entry into the hospital after days of encirclement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement: “There is no place in Gaza that we cannot reach. There is no place in Gaza that we cannot reach. “There is no hiding place. There is no shelter or refuge for Hamas.” murderers.
“We will reach and eliminate Hamas and we will bring back our hostages. These are two sacred missions,” he said.
Witnesses who spoke to Reuters from inside the compound described a situation that appeared calm, if tense, as Israeli troops moved between buildings carrying out searches. Sporadic gunfire was heard, but there were no immediate reports of injuries to anyone inside the complex.
The Israeli army released photos of a soldier standing next to cardboard boxes marked “medical supplies” and “baby food,” at a location Reuters verified was inside Al Shifa. Other photos showed Israeli troops in tactical formation walking past tents and makeshift mattresses.
International attention focused on the plight of hundreds of patients trapped inside, without electricity to operate basic medical equipment, and on the thousands of displaced civilians who had sought shelter there. Gaza officials say many patients, including three newborns, have died in recent days following Israel’s encirclement of the hospital.
“Before entering the hospital, our forces were confronted by explosive devices and terrorist squads. Fighting took place, during which terrorists were killed,” the Israeli army said.
“We can confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies brought by IDF tanks from Israel have reached Shifa Hospital. Our medical teams and Arabic-speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure these supplies reach to those who need it,” he added.
Israel launched its campaign to eliminate Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, after militants entered Israel on October 7 and ransacked towns, killing civilians and bringing hostages back to the enclave. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 prisoners captured in the deadliest day in its 75-year history.
Since then, Israel has besieged Gaza’s entire population of 2.3 million, hitting the crowded strip with airstrikes. Health officials in Gaza, considered reliable by the United Nations, say more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, about 40 percent of them children, and others are buried under rubble. Israel has ordered the evacuation of the entire northern half of Gaza, and around two-thirds of residents are now homeless.
HUMANITARIAN BREAKS
The United Nations Security Council was due to vote later Wednesday on a draft resolution calling for urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses in the fighting as well as corridors across the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to allow access. for help, diplomats said.
Israel has so far rejected calls for a ceasefire, which it says would benefit Hamas, a position supported by Washington. But a pause in the fighting was mooted during negotiations mediated by Qatar to free some of the hostages held by Hamas.
An official briefed on the negotiations said Qatari mediators were seeking a deal that would include a three-day truce, with Hamas releasing 50 of its prisoners and Israel freeing some women and minors among its security detainees.
The official said Hamas had accepted the broad outlines of the deal, but Israel had not and was still negotiating the terms.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told reporters that the Israeli incursion into Al Shifa Hospital was “totally unacceptable”.
“Hospitals are not battlefields,” he said in Geneva.
Israel has always maintained that the hospital was located above a Hamas headquarters, a claim the United States said Tuesday was supported by its own intelligence services.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, also speaking in Geneva, implored Israel on Wednesday to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing. Aid is currently allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt, but it was designed for pedestrians, not trucks.
“TERROR INFRASTRUCTURES”
A senior Israeli military official said soldiers had “already found weapons and other terrorist infrastructure” at the Al Shifa facility – proof, he added, that Hamas used the hospital as a ” headquarters of terrorism.
Hamas called the claim that weapons were found a “continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda” that Israel spreads to justify “its crime of destroying Gaza’s health sector.”
Dr. Ahmed El Mohallalati, a surgeon, told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday morning that staff had hidden as fighting raged around the hospital overnight. As he spoke, the sound of what he described as “continuous firing from tanks” could be heard in the background.
“One of the big tanks entered the hospital through the east main gate, and… they parked in front of the emergency department of the hospital,” he said.
The Israelis had informed the hospital administration in advance of their intention to enter, he said. By mid-morning, he and other personnel had not yet received instructions from the troops, even though the soldiers were “meters” away from them.
After five days during which, he said, the hospital had come under repeated Israeli attacks, it was at least a relief to have reached an “end point”, with troops now inside the compound instead of to shoot outside, Mohallalati said.