Gaza hospital searched as Israeli hostages’ bodies found

Israel hunts terrorists hiding within or beneath the Al-Shifa hospital.

Israeli troops searched buildings of Gaza’s main hospital for Hamas terrorists and weapons as they recovered the bodies of their colleagues nearby in the Palestinian enclave on Friday.

The body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, was found in a building near the Al-Shifa hospital.

Hamas terrorists kidnapped Weiss from her home in the border kibbutz community of Beeri, one of the areas worst-hit by the brutal Hamas assault on 7 October.

Her husband was killed in the attack, a hostage support group said.

Israel’s army also said Friday it had recovered the remains of a woman soldier held hostage by Hamas, whose death the military had announced earlier in the week.

“The body of the soldier Noa Marciano... has been extracted” by fellow troops “from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital” in the Gaza Strip, an army statement said.

Hamas terrorists said the 19-year-old had been killed in an Israeli bombardment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged hostages may even have been held at the medical facility.

“We had strong indications that they were held in the Shifa Hospital, which is one of the reasons we entered the hospital,” he told CBS Evening News.

Allegations about the hospital have not been verified, and on Friday communications with the Gaza Strip were severed once again.

Network provider Paltel group said all telecommunications were down because “all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and fuel was not allowed in.”

Negotiations are ongoing for the release of the Israeli hostages, including infants, in exchange for a pause in fighting.

Qatar, where Hamas has political offices, and Egypt have been mediating what Egypt’s foreign minister described Thursday as “very delicate” discussions.

Hospitals military target?

Israel’s ground operation has so far focused on the north of the Gaza Strip, where it has announced the seizure of the parliament building, government offices, Hamas police headquarters and a key port. It says 51 of its troops have been killed in the fighting.

Hospitals have become a particular target, with Israel saying it has found tunnels or military equipment at the AlShifa, Rantisi and Al-Quds facilities.

Palestinian health officials said Thursday that the Al-Ahli hospital was under attack, with the Palestinian Red Crescent saying casualties in the courtyard could not be reached by medical staff because of explosions and gunfire.

The Israeli army’s raid on Gaza’s hospital has sparked a torrent of international condemnation, with Qatar branding it a “war crime.”

Israel has denied the accusation, saying its operation falls within the boundaries of international law.

The Geneva Conventions, adopted in the aftermath of World War II, form the core of international humanitarian law and “are particularly protective of civilian hospitals,” according to Mathilde Philip-Gay, an expert in international humanitarian law at Lyon-3 university in southeast France.

“It is forbidden to turn recognized civilian hospitals into a conflict zone. It is also forbidden to use civilian populations, the sick or the injured as human shields, it is a war crime, as is fighting from inside a hospital,” Philip-Gay told Agence FrancePresse.

Negotiations are ongoing for the release of the Israeli hostages.

Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court in The Hague, defines a long list of war crimes including “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected.”

But it makes an exception if the targets are “military objectives.”

Philip-Gay said that “if a civilian hospital is used for acts harmful to the enemy, that is the legal term used,” the hospital can lose its protected status under international law and be considered a legitimate target.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said Friday it had killed “at least five terrorists” during an operation in a refugee camp in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.