Exchanges of fire and fighting took place shortly before dawn on Monday, March 18, in and around Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Israeli army announced that it was carrying out an operation on the hospital in a press release published Monday morning, while witnesses on site confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) bombings and shootings and fighting.
The soldiers “are currently carrying out a targeted operation in the area of ??Al-Shifa hospital,” details the press release. “The operation is based on information indicating the use of the hospital by high-ranking Hamas terrorists. »
“During the operation, the terrorists opened fire on the troops from the hospital,” explains another joint statement from the army and Israeli domestic intelligence. “The troops responded by shooting,” he continued, suggesting that individuals had been hit by the gunfire.
The health ministry in the Hamas-administered Gaza Strip said “tens of thousands” of people were in the hospital. One of the buildings is on fire “following an airstrike”, he added, deploring “dozens of martyrs”, some bodies having been brought from the surroundings of the hospital, others remaining on the roadway, “no one being able to transport them to the hospital due to the intensity of the shooting.”
Air operations
On the spot, witnesses confirmed to AFP “air operations” in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, where the hospital is located, the largest in the Gaza Strip, in which “shrapnel” reportedly fell. shell”. Residents of this central neighborhood of Gaza City claimed that “more than 45 Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers” had entered Al-Rimal. Some report “fighting” around the hospital.
The Israeli army speaks to residents through loudspeakers, asking them to stay at home while “drones shoot at people in the streets near the hospital”, according to witnesses on site interviewed by AFP.
Israeli troops received “instructions on the importance of operating with caution, as well as measures to take to avoid harm to patients, civilians, medical personnel,” the army statement said. “Arabic-speaking people were brought on site to facilitate exchanges with patients,” he adds, “patients and medical staff are not obliged to evacuate.”
“Terrorist Activities”
The army also released what it said was an excerpt from a telephone exchange that took place “in recent days” between the Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) and an official from the Israeli Ministry of Health. Gaza Strip, during which its representative explains being “ready” to provide aid if “terrorist activities” within the hospital stop.
“We confirm that the narratives of [Israel’s] occupation are false,” Palestinian movements active in the Gaza Strip said in a joint statement. “Hospitals are civilian health buildings, which have done nothing that contravenes their tasks as defined by international humanitarian law. “.
The Israeli army entered the hospital on November 15, and the facility is now operating at a minimum and with a skeleton crew. After this large-scale operation, the Israeli army said it had found “ammunition, weapons and military equipment” from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Al-Shifa hospital, which Hamas denied.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli army has carried out operations in several hospitals in the Palestinian territory. She accuses Hamas of using health establishments as command centers.
