Fighting rages around Gaza hospitals
Civilians flee for safety as refugees under attack
JERUSALEM — Israeli tanks, explosions, and artillery blasts surrounded Gaza City’s overcrowded hospitals Friday, targeting facilities that Israeli forces say double as Hamas strongholds even as the advance forced thousands more civilians to make dangerous journeys through battle zones.
At least seven hospitals reported being under siege or in proximity to the fighting in Gaza City, the heaviest urban combat yet in the one-month-old war. Hospitals have been struggling with scarce resources to deal not only with the inflow of casualties but also thousands of Palestinians seeking refuge.
The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, confirmed it had surrounded several hospitals and demanded they be evacuated, according to Israel Army Radio. The IDF says the hospitals are used by Hamas as hubs to store supplies and fuel.
Israeli forces have issued steady progress reports on their battles in Gaza City, describing the deaths of dozens of militants as well as compounds captured and weapons factories uncovered.
IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said Friday that Hamas was firing from hospitals in Gaza. “If we see Hamas terrorists firing from hospitals, then we will do what we need to do,” he said in a briefing. He added, “We’re aware of the sensitivity of the hospitals.”
The militant group and doctors at hospitals in Gaza deny the Israeli allegations of a Hamas presence.
Under international pressure, Israel announced a policy of midday pauses in the fighting for four hours to allow movement of aid convoys and to give residents of Gaza City and the northern part of the Gaza Strip time to trek southward — though strikes are taking place in all parts of the enclave.
Tens of thousands have taken advantage of the pauses to flee, with 50,000 leaving Thursday alone, according to the United Nations humanitarian affairs agency. An estimated 900,000 have packed into the increasingly teeming south since the start of the war.
In response to a Hamas incursion on Israeli communities near the Strip on Oct. 7, when militants killed at least 1,400 Israelis and took more than 240 hostages, Israel has unleashed a blistering attack on the Gaza Strip that so far has claimed more than 11,000 lives, including thousands of children.
The World Health Organization on Friday confirmed reports that al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City, has come under bombardment. Mohamed Abu Salmiya, the hospital’s director general, told Al Jazeera that there had been at least four strikes on it by Friday, calling it “a day of war against hospitals.’’
Medhat Abbas, director of the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, told The Washington Post that Israeli tanks were closing in on al-Shifa on Friday afternoon local time. The Associated Press reported that thousands of Palestinians sheltering there fled south Friday after the strikes.
“Shifa hospital has collapsed,’’ Ghassan Abu Sitta, a doctor there, posted on the social media platform X on Friday evening. “Wounded and staff leaving in droves.’’
The Gaza Health Ministry also reported “direct attacks and bombardments’' around the alRantisi pediatric hospital since Thursday that had left it cut off.
Shahad al-Sharafa, 18, who has been sheltering at the hospital, said Thursday night by phone that strikes had set ablaze several ambulances in the hospital’s yard. She said the displaced people living there tried to put out the fires. Emergency crews could not immediately reach the facility because of ongoing bombardments and street fighting.
At the nearby al-Nasr Hospital, a crowd of civilians, including many children, attempted to leave through one of the hospital’s gates while waving white flags. As the group began to move onto the street, three gunshots could be heard, forcing people to retreat back into the hospital grounds, according to a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, and geolocated by The Washington Post. The Post could not confirm the source of the shots.
Later Friday, the three nearby hospitals — al-Nasr, al-Rantisi, and the Gaza Eye Hospital — that had been surrounded by the fighting were evacuated after being given an exit route by Israel’s military.
“We were carrying white flags, and when we walked out, we passed by the tanks; I was meters away from one,’’ said Baqr Qaoud, director of al-Nasr Hospital. He said some 4,000 people left.
Israel also struck the Indonesian Hospital and al-Quds Hospital in northern Gaza on Friday, Hamas official Basem Naim said in a news conference.
Across Gaza City, panic was spreading fast as thousands of people made desperate dashes for safety. Since Sunday, more than 120,000 have fled south by foot from the city and the enclave’s northern half, according to OCHA, the UN humanitarian agency. It’s an arduous, hourslong journey along a road lined with tanks and decaying bodies, Gazans who have made the trip have told The Post.