Gaza: Israeli army storms Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza
By Anadolu staff
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA): Following extensive attacks around the hospital, the Israeli army stormed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early Wednesday.
In the meanwhile, Israeli contines its indiscriminate air raids on homes in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City over the past few days have killed at least 25 Palestinians, according to media reports.
A Wafa correspondent said the majority of the victims were women and children.
Dr. Ahmad Mikhallalati, head of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex burns department, said in a press statement reported by Al Jazeera that Israeli tanks and bulldozers are now inside the complex.
An al-Shifa Hospital doctor has told Reuters that gunfire from outside the hospital is forcing staff to stay away from windows following the Israeli raid.
The doctor denied Israeli accusations that Hamas has been using the hospital as a command centre.
Al Jazeera has spoken to a person inside the medical complex.
“Israeli forces have tried to kill anyone moving inside … No one has done anything. We don’t have any kind of resistance inside the hospital,” he said.
“Some American reports say there is a network of tunnels inside the hospital. This is not true at all,” he added.
Earlier Wednesday, the Israeli army said it launched a military operation in “a certain part” of the Al-Shifa Complex.
Its announcement came after the Gaza Health Ministry said the army officially informed the administration of the medical complex that it would storm it Tuesday night.
Dr. Muhammad Zaqout, director general of Gaza hospitals, told Al Jazeera media: “Not a single bullet was fired from inside the hospital during the occupation forces’ storming of the complex.”
“The occupation forces stormed the surgical and emergency buildings in Al-Shifa Complex, entered the emergency department, and are now searching the hospital’s basement,” he said.
“The occupation opened fire on those who left a corridor that they claimed was safe to exit Al-Shifa,” he added.
He stressed that the Israeli army did not find any evidence of the members of the Palestinian resistance hiding in or around the hospital, contrary to their claims before storming the complex.
Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza, told the Associated Press over the phone that the patients, including children, are terrified after Israeli forces stormed the buildings.
“They are screaming. It’s a very terrifying situation … we can do nothing for the patients but pray,” he said.
Palestinian group Hamas held Israel and US President Joe Biden fully responsible for the repercussions of the storming of Al-Shifa and the safety of the medical staff as well as the displaced people sheltering there.
“The White House and the Pentagon’s adoption of the false (Israeli) occupation narrative claiming that the resistance is using the Al-Shifa Medical Complex for military purposes was a green light for the occupation to commit more massacres against civilians to force them to migrate from the north to the south to complete the occupation plan aimed at displacing our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila also issued a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency holding the Israeli “occupation responsible for the lives of medical staff, patients, and displaced people in the Al-Shifa complex.”
Al-Kaila warned of “catastrophic consequences for patients and medical staff if the occupation army carries out a storming of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex.”
Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Government Media Office in Gaza, called storming the hospital a “war crime.”
“The occupation will fail to prove that Al-Shifa Hospital is the headquarters of the resistance leadership,” Al-Thawabta told Al-Jazeera, adding: “It is expected that the occupation will bring weapons into the hospital, arrange them in a specific way, and then take photos.”
[Photo: Injured Palestinian children help other children injured by Israeli airstrikes in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on 14 11 23. Photojournalist Ashraf Amra/ AA]
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