Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital in culmination of siege

GAZA – Israeli troops entered Gaza’s biggest hospital on Wednesday, following a days-long siege that has caused global alarm over the fate of thousands of civilians trapped inside.

Al-Shifa Hospital

has become the main target of Israel’s ground operation. The Israeli military has claimed that Hamas has its headquarters in tunnels beneath the hospital, which Hamas denies.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it uncovered unspecified weapons and a “terror infrastructure” inside the hospital compound after killing Hamas fighters in a clash outside.

It said once its soldiers were inside the hospital, there had been no fighting and no friction with civilians, patients or staff.

Hamas called the claim that weapons were found “a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda through which (Israel) is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.

Witnesses who spoke to Reuters from inside the compound on Wednesday described a situation that appeared calm, if tense, as soldiers moved between buildings carrying out searches. Sporadic shooting was heard, but there were no immediate reports of anyone hurt inside the grounds.

World attention has been focused on the fate of hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced civilians trapped inside without power to operate basic medical equipment, and thousands of displaced civilians who had sought shelter there.

Gaza officials said many patients, including three newborns, have died in recent days as a result of Israel’s encirclement of the facility.

Israeli troops brought medical supplies for those inside.

“We can confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies brought by IDF tanks from Israel have successfully reached the Shifa hospital. Our medical teams and Arabic-speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need,” the Israeli military said.

Dr Ahmed El-Mohallalati, a surgeon, told Reuters by phone that

staff were in hiding as the fighting unfolded

outside the hospital overnight.

“So yesterday early evening it started… shooting around the hospital and within the hospital, and the sound was really horrible,” he said.

“And then we realised that the tanks are moving around the hospital, and they were just parked in front of the hospital emergency department,” he added.

He said the Israelis warned the hospital administration in advance that they planned to enter and search the hospital.

After five days, during which he said the hospital came under Israeli attack, it was a relief at least to have reached an “end point”, with troops now inside the grounds instead of outside shooting in.

Dr Ahmed was worried about the fate of his patients, including from any hasty evacuation, but unconcerned about potential clashes in the compound, saying Israeli claims that there were fighters inside were a “big lie”.

The Israelis used “all kinds of weapons” and “targeted the hospital directly” during their siege, he said, describing a large hole that had been blasted through the wall of a room in an outpatient building.

Another witness inside the hospital, reached by telephone, said tanks entered the compound at 3am.

The Israeli troops dismounted, spread out in the yard and began searching the basement and entering buildings.

“It was very dangerous looking from the glass window. The administration of the hospital told us the occupation army informed them they wanted to search us and search room by room,” the man said, asking that his name be withheld for fear of Israeli reprisals.

“There was no shooting because there were no gunmen inside the facility. The soldiers were acting freely as were people inside the hospital, the doctors, the wounded and the displaced,” the man said.

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Our concern on the humanitarian side is for the welfare of the patients of that hospital, which is, of course, in great peril at the moment.”

“I understand the Israelis’ concern for trying to find the leadership of Hamas. That’s not our problem. Our problem is protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them,” he wrote.

The IDF said the raid was necessary: “Based on intelligence information and an operational necessity, IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital.”

Israel gave Hamas a 12-hour deadline to cease military activity at the hospital. It said: “Unfortunately, it did not.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, told CNN that the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a centre of gravity”.

The United States said on Tuesday that its own intelligence supported Israel’s conclusions.

Hamas said on Wednesday that US announcement had effectively given a “green light” for Israel to raid the hospital.

The group said it held Israel and US President Joe Biden fully responsible for the operation.

“We do not support striking a hospital from the air, and we don’t want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people trying to get medical care they deserve are caught in the crossfire. Hospitals and patients must be protected,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement.

Israeli forces have waged fierce street battles against Hamas fighters over the past 10 days before advancing into the centre of Gaza City and surrounding Al-Shifa.

Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the

group’s attack on southern Israel on Oct 7

.

Israel says Hamas killed 1,200 people in the rampage and took more than 240 hostages.

In the West Bank, a separate Palestinian enclave not controlled by Hamas, Palestinian Authority Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said Israel was “committing a new crime against humanity, medical staff and patients by besieging” Al-Shifa.

“We hold the occupation forces fully responsible for the lives of the medical staff, patients and displaced people in Al-Shifa,” she said in a statement.

Dire conditions

Al-Shifa is a sprawling complex of buildings and courtyards, a few hundred metres from Gaza City’s fishing port.

Buildings on the western side of the complex, which the Gaza officials said was the site of the raid, include the internal medicine and dialysis departments.

Hamas says 650 patients and 5,000 to 7,000 other civilians are trapped inside the hospital grounds, under constant fire from Israeli snipers and drones.

Amid shortages of fuel, water and supplies

, it says 40 patients have died in recent days.

In the neonatal ward, 36 babies are left after three died.

Without fuel for generators to power incubators, the babies were being kept as warm as possible, lined up eight to a bed.

Palestinians trapped in the hospital dug a mass grave on Tuesday to bury patients who died.

There are no plans in place to evacuate babies despite Israel announcing an offer to send portable incubators, Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said.

Mr Qidra said there were about 100 bodies decomposing inside and no way to get them out.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was deeply disturbed by the “dramatic loss of life” in the hospitals, his spokesman said.

“In the name of humanity, the Secretary-General calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” the spokesman told reporters.

Medical officials in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 11,000 people are confirmed dead from Israeli strikes, around 40 per cent of them children.

Countless others are trapped under rubble, they added.

Around two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been made homeless, unable to escape the territory where food, fuel, fresh water and medical supplies are running out.

International law

Israel’s move towards the hospital has raised questions about how it would interpret international laws on protection of medical facilities and the thousands of displaced people sheltering there, UN human rights officials have said.

Hospitals are protected buildings under international humanitarian law.

But allegations that Al-Shifa is also being used for military purposes complicated the situation because that would also breach international law, UN officials have said.

Medical units used for acts harmful to the enemy, and which have ignored a warning to stop doing so, lose their special protection under international law.

Mr Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, said before Israel’s raid that even if Hamas was proven to be using hospitals to conduct military operations, international law required that effective warnings be given before attacks.

This meant people there needed a safe place to go and a safe way to get there, Mr Shakir said.

“It’s very alarming because you have to remember hospitals in Gaza are housing tens of thousands of displaced persons.” REUTERS