The Israeli army declared on Saturday March 23 that it intended to continue its operations carried out since Monday at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City until “the last terrorist” is captured. “We will finish this operation only when the last terrorist is in our hands – alive or dead,” announced the commander-in-chief of the southern region, Yaron Finkelman, in a statement released by the Israeli armed forces.
“The operation here in Al-Shifa is important” and “complicated,” he commented, adding that it had made it possible to “hit hundreds of terrorists” and “apprehend hundreds” ‘others. Earlier on Saturday, the army said it had killed a total of more than 170 Palestinian fighters and arrested hundreds of suspects during the raids.
Since Monday, residents of the neighborhood and staff of the hospital complex, the largest in the Palestinian territory, have reported raids, systematic searches of surrounding houses, significant destruction of buildings, particularly at the hospital, and men arrested. by the hundreds.
On Saturday, the Israeli army announced the installation of medical equipment and beds on site to treat the most seriously ill, and the arrival of medicine and two tons of food. She added that she had evacuated the sick and injured to a “specific location” within the hospital center.
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip administered by Hamas reported nineteen Palestinians killed and injured “by tank fire and shells from the Israeli occupation army”, while “they were waiting for help”. aid trucks” near Gaza City.
“Reports claiming that Israeli forces attacked dozens of Gazans near an aid convoy are incorrect,” the Israeli army said in a statement. According to “preliminary information”, “there was no air strike against the convoy nor shooting by [Israeli] forces on people near the aid convoy”, she added.
United Nations (UN) chief Antonio Guterres visited the Gaza Strip’s gates on the Egyptian side of the town of Rafah on Saturday, where he drew attention to the “pain” Palestinians and called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to end “an endless nightmare.”
“There is no justification for the horrific attacks by Hamas on October 7. And nothing justifies the collective punishment suffered by the Palestinian people. Now more than ever, it is time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” he said, also calling on Hamas to “immediately release all the hostages” kidnapped on October 7.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to the comments on Saturday, calling the UN an “anti-Israeli organization.” “Under his leadership, the UN has become an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organization that harbors and encourages terrorism,” Mr. Katz writes on Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, without in any way condemning Hamas terrorists who are looting humanitarian aid,” the official charged.