Israeli troops pull out of Gaza hospital

DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA STRIP • The Israeli military withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital early Monday after a two-week raid it describes as a major battlefield victory in the nearly six-month war with Hamas, saying its troops killed 200 terrorists in the operation.

Footage showed widespread devastation, with Shifa Hospital’s main buildings reduced to burnt-out husks.

The fighting around Shifa in Gaza City showed that Hamas can still put up resistance even in one of the hardest-hit areas. Israel said it had largely dismantled Hamas in northern Gaza and withdrew thousands of troops late last year.

Israel said it launched the latest raid on Shifa because senior Hamas operatives had regrouped there and were planning attacks. It identified six officials from Hamas’s military wing it said were killed inside the hospital during the raid. It also said it seized weapons and valuable intelligence.

The raid triggered days of heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa, with witnesses reporting airstrikes, the shelling of homes and troops going house to house evacuating residents.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group established their main northern headquarters inside the hospital. He described days of close-quarters fighting and blamed Hamas for the destruction, saying some fighters barricaded themselves inside hospital wards while others launched mortar rounds at the compound.

Hagari said the army evacuated more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients and delivered food, water and medical supplies to the rest. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid, the military said.

World Health Organization Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus claimed late Sunday on X that at least 21 patients died during the raid but Israel’s military denied that its forces harmed any civilians inside the compound.

Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and civilians as human shields.

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike has destroyed the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Damascus, killing or wounding everyone inside, Syrian state media said Monday.

The Iranian Arabic-language state television Alalam and pan-arab television station Al-mayadeen, which has reporters in Syria, said the strike killed Iranian military adviser Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi. Zahdi who previously led the Iranian elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016.

There was no official confirmation from Iran.

The Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike killed at least six people.