GAZA’S AL SHIFA HOSPITAL DEVASTATED IN TWO-WEEK BATTLE
Several doctors and civilians at the damaged complex said that at least 20 bodies had been found, some of which appeared to have been driven over by military vehicles
Israeli forces on Monday pulled out of Gaza’s largest hospital complex after an intensive twoweek military operation, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies strewn at the sprawling complex.
Israel said it had battled Palestinian fighters hiding inside Gaza City’s Al-shifa Hospital, killed at least 200 and recovered large stockpiles of weapons, explosives and cash.
The health ministry in Gaza said that, after heavy Israeli air strikes and tank fire, “the scale of the destruction inside the complex and the buildings around it is very large”.
“Dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed, have been recovered from in and around the Al-shifa medical complex,” it said, adding that the hospital was now “completely out of service”.
Several doctors and civilians at the damaged complex said that at least 20 bodies had been found, some of which appeared to have been driven over by military vehicles.
Several were found close to the west entrance to the complex, which the Israeli army used during its departure from the hospital grounds on Monday.
“Bodies... The tanks went over them. Destruction. Children. Innocents. Unarmed civilians. They (soldiers) went over them,” one witness said, asking not to be named.
A correspondent saw one badly decomposed body bearing tyre marks, although it was not known when it was driven over.
Battles have also flared around other Gaza hospitals almost six months into the war sparked by October 7 attacks which have destroyed swathes of the besieged coastal territory.
The Gaza government press office said the army had blown up more than 20 houses within 24 hours in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, where battles have raged around the Nasser and Alamal hospitals.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,845 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Palestinian groups in a statement acknowledged the suffering and “exhaustion” of Gazans because of the war, while vowing to continue fighting until it achieves “victory and freedom” for Palestinians.
The Israeli military said on Monday that 600 soldiers had been killed since the start of the war — including 256 in the Gaza ground invasion since late October.
Over the past two weeks, the Israeli army carried out what it labelled “precise operational activity” at the Al-shifa complex, before declaring on Monday that the forces had withdrawn.
The scene left behind was one of devastation, with windows blown out, concrete walls blackened and volunteers carrying away shrouded corpses across the sandy wasteland.
Dozens of air strikes and shelling had hit the area around the complex in the morning, in heavy fire which the Hamas government media office said served to provide cover for the withdrawing troops and tanks.
The army has in recent days released footage of its fighters moving through the hospital’s corridors, and pictures of large numbers of assault rifles, grenades and other weapons it said were recovered from the maternity ward.