On Thursday, November 16, the Israeli army continued its operation in the main hospital in the Gaza Strip; it raises serious concerns and numerous criticisms internationally, particularly regarding the fate of patients and thousands of trapped civilians.
Breaking silence for the first time since the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas, the United Nations (UN) Security Council called for “humanitarian pauses and corridors” in the enclave.
The Israeli army accuses Hamas of using Al-Shifa hospital as a military base, the site representing a major objective in the Jewish state’s war against the Islamist movement, which controls the Gaza Strip. It launched its operation early Wednesday, investing in the hospital infrastructure before withdrawing its soldiers and tanks. A journalist working with Agence France-Presse (AFP) was able to see Israeli troops repositioning themselves around the health establishment late in the afternoon.
But, during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it was once again carrying out an operation at Al-Shifa hospital. “Tonight we are carrying out a targeted operation in Al-Shifa Hospital. We continue to move forward,” Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, in charge of operations in the Gaza Strip, said on the IDF’s Telegram channel.
The Ministry of Health of the Hamas administration, for its part, reported the presence of Israeli bulldozers on this hospital complex where, according to the UN, there are around 2,300 people, including patients, caregivers but also displaced people. . “Bulldozers destroyed parts of the southern entrance” to the hospital, the ministry announced in a brief statement in Arabic.
Early Wednesday, dozens of Israeli soldiers, some hooded, burst into the hospital, according to the journalist working with AFP on site. “All men aged 16 and over, raise your hands in the air and exit the buildings towards the inner courtyard to surrender,” they shouted in Arabic.
Washington did not “give the green light” to these operations
On Wednesday evening, the Israeli army claimed to have found “munitions and military equipment” from Hamas in this hospital. It has published images of what it claims are weapons, grenades and other equipment found in Al-Shifa. The AFP was unable to independently verify these claims.
The Israeli army “did not find any weapons or military equipment” in Al-Shifa hospital, replied the Hamas Ministry of Health, which assured “not to authorize” their presence in its establishments.
The raid on Al-Shifa hospital on Wednesday sparked international condemnation and pressing calls to protect Palestinian civilians.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on Israel to be “extremely cautious.”
The United States did not “give the green light to the Jewish state’s operations around Al-Shifa hospital,” said the spokesperson for the American National Security Council, John Kirby. “We have always been very clear with our Israeli partners on the importance of minimizing civilian casualties,” he added.
The day before, he had corroborated the Israeli ally’s assertions regarding the use of hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes, including Al-Shifa, statements qualified by Hamas as a “green light” for Israel to “commit new massacres.”
France expresses “its very serious concern”
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, condemned “with the greatest firmness” the bombing of civilian infrastructure. Shortly before, the Quai d’Orsay had expressed “its very serious concern”, believing that the Palestinian population “does not have to pay for the crimes of Hamas”.
For its part, Qatar, a key mediator in negotiations on the release of hostages still in the hands of Hamas, called for “an international investigation” into Israeli raids on Gaza hospitals, calling the operation in Al-Shifa of “war crime”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday described Israel as a “terrorist state”, denouncing the cost in human life of the bombings of the Gaza Strip.
In Al-Shifa on Wednesday, soldiers also searched crying women and children, according to the journalist on site. In the hospital corridors, they sometimes fired into the air as they went from room to room. Israel said it had sent “trained Arabic-speaking medical teams” so “that no harm would come to civilians used by Hamas as human shields.” “When the soldiers entered the hospital complex, they confronted a number of terrorists and killed them,” the army says.
According to his Israeli army spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, civilians have been evacuated from the facility but “there are still many people inside.”
The war was sparked by Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israeli soil, unprecedented since Israel’s founding. Around 1,200 people were killed, mainly civilians massacred that day, according to authorities. In retaliation, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, an organization classified as “terrorist” by the United States and the European Union, relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip, which was under total siege.
Israeli bombings left 11,500 dead, mostly civilians, including 4,710 children, according to the Hamas government.
Since November 5, around 200,000 Palestinians, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), have fled the northern Gaza Strip, transformed into a field of ruins, after Israel opened “ evacuation corridors. According to OCHA, 1.65 million of the territory’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war.