On Thursday, Israel renewed its operation at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, claiming it targeted a Hamas command center within the facility where patients, medics and displaced civilians were present, with an estimated 2,300 individuals in the complex according to the UN.
“Tonight we conducted a targeted operation into Shifa hospital,” said, on Wednesday night, Major General Yaron Finkelman, the head of Israeli military operations in Gaza. “We continue to move forward.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli bulldozers had “destroyed parts of the southern entrance” of the hospital.
Both Israel and its top ally, the United States, believe Hamas has a command center below the Al-Shifa complex, which has become a focal point in the war. The Palestinian militant group and directors at the hospital have denied the charge.
Read more
Before Israel first sent troops into the hospital complex on Wednesday, UN agencies estimated that 2,300 patients, staff, and displaced civilians were sheltering at Al-Shifa.
Israel’s army claimed an initial raid had uncovered military equipment, weapons, and what spokesman Daniel Hagari described as “an operational headquarters with comms equipment.”
About 1,000 male Palestinians, hands above their heads, were in the courtyard, some of them stripped naked by Israeli soldiers checking them for weapons or explosives, the journalist said.
US President Joe Biden said Hamas had committed a war crime by housing “their headquarters, their military, hidden under a hospital.”
But he warned Israel to be “incredibly careful” of harming civilians during the operation.
Miroslava Salazar, with AFP
