Battles rage at two hospitals in Gaza
Aid groups warn of health care system failure
JERUSALEM — the Israeli military said thursday that it was carrying out raids in and around two hospitals in the gaza strip, as the United nations and aid groups expressed alarm for patients and medical workers there and warned of the rapidly deteriorating state of gaza’s health care system.
Fierce battles have been raging in and around shifa Hospital, the largest in the strip, since an Israeli assault there began 10 days ago.
The renewed fighting around the hospital, which Israel first raided in november, underscores the problems Israel has had in maintaining control of parts of gaza its forces have supposedly captured. so far, the Israeli government, led by prime minister benjamin netanyahu, has not agreed on a detailed plan for governing the enclave.
The Israeli military said in a statement that nearly 200 people whom it called “terrorists” had been killed in the area and that its troops had taken fire from militants inside and outside one of the hospital’s buildings. gaza authorities said that over the course of the raid, more than 200 civilians had been killed and another 1,000 had been detained. neither claim could be independently verified.
The Israeli military said that its forces were also continuing to operate around Al Amal Hospital and the town of Al-qarara, in the khan Younis area of southern gaza, and had killed dozens that it said were terrorists.
Al Amal went out of service monday night after Israeli forces besieged it a day earlier and forced everyone inside to leave before closing off its entrances with earthen barriers, according to the palestine Red Crescent society, which runs the hospital.
“The loss of Al Amal is another blow to an already collapsing health system,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said thursday. It added that thousands of people in need of medical treatment were not able to receive it.
Israel maintains that Hamas, the armed group that led an attack into southern Israel on oct. 7, is using hospitals in gaza for military purposes, a claim that Hamas and hospital administrators have denied.
Witnesses have described days of fear as fighting has continued at the shifa complex, with several patients dying as a result of the assault.
“We are constantly hearing strikes and gunfire day and night and seeing smoke rising from buildings,” said ezzeldine al-dali, who lives less than a mile from shifa.
“The scale of destruction around us is indescribable,” said Al-Dali, 22, in a voice message thursday.
Tedros Adhanom ghebreyesus, the head of the world Health organization, said thursday that gaza’s health system was “barely surviving.” He called for “an immediate end to attacks on hospitals” and for the protection of medical staff, patients, and civilians.
Israel initially raided shifa Hospital in november, and struggled to prove its early claim that Hamas maintained a command and control center beneath the site. evidence examined by the new York times suggests Hamas has used the hospital for cover, stored weapons inside it, and maintained a hardened tunnel beneath it.
The fact that the Israeli military’s operation at the hospital and in the neighborhood has lasted longer than its previous raid there in november suggests that Hamas and allied groups have returned and have built up a significant force there, military analysts say.
That in turn suggests that Israel’s strategy in north gaza involves repeated raids in places where Hamas or other groups have reasserted themselves, according to military analysts.
But the problems Israel has faced in securing the hospital and its vicinity also raise the question of how easily Israel’s military could eliminate the threat from Hamas without a long term-presence in gaza.