Inside the wreckage of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital
Gaza’s largest hospital has been gutted. Combat bulldozers have moved sand into the courtyards. The buildings are scorched. It smells like death. Israeli commandos pulled out before dawn on Monday.
A sprawling medical campus that housed maternity wards, surgery suites and emergency rooms has been mostly destroyed after two weeks of intense assault by Israeli troops battling Hamas militants who Israel said were barricading themselves inside the complex.
Spokesmen for the Israel Defence Forces brought a handful of foreign journalists into the compound just hours before the last special forces troops withdrew. A reporter and photographer from The Washington Post were there.
The IDF offered a narrow view - a pinhole, really - but what we saw was destruction on a massive scale. Military censors did not review our words or photos.
It is hard to overstate the importance of al-Shifa, where the duelling narratives of this war have converged.
The hospital has served as a beacon of refuge and resilience for Palestinians. The Israelis described it as a mustering point and command centre for terrorists who used the doctors and patients as human shields.
The staff who have toiled at al-Shifa said they just wanted to care for the sick and wounded. “We are doctors: Our job is to treat people. We have nothing to do with this,” said Amr Fawzi Jedbah, a 31-year-old vascular surgeon, who spoke to The Washington Post in the early days of the raid.
As we emerged from the windowless armoured personnel carriers that brought us to the site, the first view was sand, and, for a moment, there was silence. Gaza City, more rubble now than city, was quiet. Then we heard small-arms fire.
The compound smelled of bodies. And rot. Everything that could be broken, smashed or twisted was, after 14 days of fighting.
Before this second offensive against al-Shifa, the hospital was still functioning, if just barely, after a first raid by Israel soldiers in November. When the March assault began two weeks ago, there were 6000 people sheltering on the grounds, according to the IDF. On Monday, we didn’t see a single Palestinian.
In the central quad, there were new sand dunes shaped by bulldozers. Israeli armour and personnel carriers encircled the complex; troops moved quickly from spot to spot.
We were told that Palestinian snipers remained in the area and that a handful of Hamas operatives might still be moving around the hospital buildings, based on night-vision sweeps of the compound. We saw only Israeli soldiers.
There were sporadic bursts of automatic rifle fire in the distance and what we guessed were heavier rounds being fired. It was unclear who was shooting, or at what.
The Israeli special forces described close-quarter combat with Hamas fighters who had barricaded themselves in emptied hospital wards, including elevator shafts and operating rooms.
We were not given access to the last 140 Palestinians - staff and patients - that the IDF said were sheltering in a nearby building, waiting to be evacuated.
Earlier in the war, the IDF made much of the tunnels they found on the hospital grounds. They described a vast underground command and control centre. But definitive evidence was lacking.
As it turns out, said Colonel E from the navy special operations unit called Flotilla 13 – one of the most secretive in the Israeli forces – the tunnel system may not have been as important as they once thought. Instead, the colonel said, the Hamas operatives in recent months were working above ground, inside offices and wards. Medical staff stated repeatedly that the complex was not used for military purposes.
The colonel said Israel had no choice but to fight back at Hamas. As the journalists looked out at the destruction, one officer said, “This is what they made us do.”
Washington Post