Hospital in ruins
Israelis pull out leaving death & destruction
ISRAELI forces yesterday pulled out of the al-shifa Hospital in Gaza City, leaving the entire medical complex in ruins, and the grounds littered with corpses.
Israel claims to have killed 200 militants and detained hundreds more during the two-week onslaught against the hospital.
Gaza’s health workers said around 300 people were killed by Israel during the al-shifa operation.
Mohammed Mahdi was among those who returned yesterday, and described “total destruction”, with several buildings burned down.
He counted six bodies in the area, including two in the courtyard.
Another witness, Yahia Abu Auf, said Israeli army bulldozers had ploughed over a makeshift cemetery inside the hospital compound.
He said there were still patients, medical staff and displaced people sheltering in the al-shifa complex.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had an HQ in the hospital and fighters were barricaded inside.
The withdrawal of troops from the al-shifa happened as Gazans braced for an Israeli ground attack on Rafah, one of the last remaining safety zones in the Gaza Strip, where more than a million are sheltering in tents.
According to Israeli reports, areas of combat in Gaza have become “kill zones” where civilians risk being killed by the Israeli Defence Forces.
In footage on the Al Jazeera news channel, an unarmed man is seen waving a white cloth as he walks across a deserted patch of land in Gaza, only to be shot dead, his body then bulldozed into the ground.
A reservist officer told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “In every combat zone commanders define such kill zones.
“This means clear red lines that no one who is not from the IDF may cross, so that our forces in the area are not hit.”
But problems arise when the outer limits of such zones are left to be interpreted by local commanders in the area.
The reservist said: “As soon as people enter it, mainly adult males, orders are to shoot and kill, even if they’re unarmed.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the Al Jazeera report, saying: “The terror channel Al Jazeera will not broadcast any longer from Israel.” His parliament passed a law yesterday clearing the way to ban Al Jazeera.
Thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Jerusalem over Easter, calling for Netanyahu to be removed.
The war has killed at least 32,845 Palestinians since the conflict was triggered by the October 7 Hamas atrocities that killed 1,200 people.