TEL AVIV — The Israeli military’s’ raid at Gaza’s main hospital has entered its second week, with the IDF saying it has killed over 170 militants and detained hundreds of others in an operation that has raised questions over the fate of civilians sheltering at the site — and over Hamas’ ability to retake areas that Israel said it had cleared.
Israeli forces launched what the Israel Defense Forces described as a “high-precision” raid at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City one week ago, alleging once again that the facility was being used as a Hamas hub, while fighting was also reported in recent days at two other medical facilities in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The IDF said all of those killed and around 500 people detained in the operation were Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, though they did not provide evidence to support those claims. They also said they had located weapons and “terror infrastructure” within the hospital.
The raid has left much of Al-Shifa in ruins, with some of the walls that remain intact spattered with blood and civilians describing mass arrests.
Hamas said last week that displaced civilians sheltering at the facility were among those killed, without providing evidence, while the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least five patients had died due to lack of food, water and health services. Others, it said, were in increasingly poor condition, “and worms began to emerge from their wounds.”
And one Western military analyst told NBC News that the renewed operation at Al-Shifa was likely an inevitable result of Israel’s shift in focus to the south, where it is preparing for an offensive the U.S. and international leaders have warned against.
Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said it would be the “least surprising surprise” if Hamas militants had been using Al-Shifa Hospital as a base in recent weeks, with Israel’s attention turned largely toward a possible ground invasion of Rafah in Gaza’s south.
Inside Al-Shifa
Much of what exactly has been happening on the ground at Al-Shifa and in the area of Al-Amal Hospital in southern Gaza remains unclear. NBC News’ crew on the ground has had limited access to both sites due to fighting and NBC News wasn’t able to reach medical workers at the hospitals or the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza over the past week.
Video captured by NBC News’ crew, including on-camera witness accounts, have provided a glimpse into the chaos that has unfolded at the hospital compound over the past week, however.
In footage captured by the crew on Saturday, buildings could be seen destroyed around the Al-Shifa medical complex as blasts rang out and smoke rose in the distance. Days earlier, video showed some of the destruction inside Al-Shifa, with several rooms blown out, their walls reduced to rubble and others riddled with bullet holes. In one room, what appeared to be a body shrouded in blankets lay on the floor.
Multiple witnesses on Saturday provided NBC News’ crew with similar descriptions of being ordered by Israeli forces to exit areas of the hospital. Some said they were forced to remove their clothes outside on the medical facility’s grounds. The IDF has previously said the removal of clothes is “often necessary” to ensure detainees are not carrying weapons or explosives.
“It was raining on us and the cold was bitter,” said one man, who identified himself only as Mohamad and who NBC News has not identified further due to safety concerns. “They left us like that four to five hours.”
The man said soldiers then tied his hands and covered his eyes, before leading him and others into a room where they were left for hours before once again being taken outside. Some people were arrested, Mohamad, 36, said. “Some people were executed. Some people, of course, were released.” Asked to respond to his claim about people being “executed,” the IDF referred NBC News to a general statement about its operations at Al-Shifa Hospital.
Another witness, Abu Muhammad Alnajar, said patients and doctors were among those arrested. “I saw them with my own eyes. They arrested sick people as well as doctors,” he said.
The IDF said on Sunday that a large number of the people it apprehended were militants involved in the planning and execution of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, and accused Hamas…
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