ISLAMABAD (PEN) : Witnesses reported seeing airstrikes on the destroyed neighbourhood housing Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, as part of an operation that the Israeli army began on Monday.
According to a military statement, Israeli soldiers “are currently conducting a precise operation in the area of the Shifa hospital.”
“Intel information indicating senior Hamas terrorists are using the hospital is the basis for the operation.”
According to AFP, witnesses in Gaza City reported seeing tanks encircling the hospital.
The Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, claims that tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been uprooted by the conflict have taken refuge in the complex.
Additionally, an international outcry was caused by an operation the Israeli army carried out in November in Al-Shifa.
The Palestinian group disputes Israel’s repeated accusations that it is using hospitals and other medical facilities to conduct military operations.
“The storming of the Al-Shifa medical complex with tanks, drones, and weapons, and shooting inside it, is a war crime,” the Gaza-based office of the Hamas government’s media office declared in response to the operation.
In the territory controlled by Hamas, the health ministry announced that it had received calls from individuals in the vicinity of the hospital claiming that numerous casualties had occurred. The intensity of the gunfire and artillery shelling prevented anyone from taking them to the hospital, according to the ministry.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the Israeli army has conducted numerous operations in and around medical facilities throughout the Gaza Strip.
Israel, having vowed to destroy Hamas, has launched an intense ground offensive and bombardment that, according to the Palestinian health ministry, has killed at least 31,645 people, the majority of them women and children.
To prevent harm to patients, civilians, medical staff, and medical equipment, troops at Al-Shifa “were instructed on the importance of operating cautiously,” the Israeli military said.
Arabic speakers had been brought in to “facilitate dialogue with the patients remaining in the hospital,” according to the statement. “Patients and medical staff are not required to evacuate,” it stated.
The Israeli military claimed to have discovered weapons and other military hardware concealed in the site after its operation on Al-Shifa on November 15; Hamas has refuted these claims.
In addition, in a video, it demonstrated that hostages had been kept in the 55-meter tunnel it had discovered in the basement—a claim that Hamas also refuted.
The UN reports that since the start of the conflict, 155 medical facilities in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage.
Numerous deaths occurred throughout the Gaza Strip over the course of the night, according to the health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas. Twelve members of the same family perished over the weekend when their home in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah was struck by fire.
Leen Thabit, a Palestinian girl, sobbed as she told AFP that her cousin had perished in the attack while she dug a white dress out from under the debris of their destroyed home.
“She has passed away. There’s only her dress left,” Thabit remarked.
The only urban area in Gaza where Israeli ground forces have not yet arrived is Rafah.
Reporters were informed by visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that “any peaceful development in the region would be very difficult” if such an offensive resulted in “a large number of casualties.”
Nonetheless, Israel has maintained that it cannot defeat Hamas through military means if it does not conduct operations throughout the region.
Netanyahu promised on Sunday that residents swarming the southern part of the strip would be allowed to evacuate before military forces move in to hunt down Hamas militants. Netanyahu’s office had announced on Friday that the military’s plan for an operation in Rafah, including “the evacuation of the population,” had been approved.
At a press conference with Scholz, Netanyahu stated, “Our objective in eliminating the remaining terrorist battalions in Rafah goes hand-in-hand with enabling the civilian population to leave Rafah.”
“We will not carry out this action while the population is confined.”
Like others, Scholz posed the following query: “Where ought they to go?”
The US has stated that it seeks a “clear and implementable plan” to guarantee that civilians are “out of harm’s way” and has given Israel billions of dollars in military aid.
The UN reports that famine is a threat in Gaza, and many of the territory’s citizens have had to flee their homes several times in recent months.
There is still no word on the whereabouts of those jammed into Rafah, and the idea of Palestinians being dispersed outside of the Palestinian Territories is met with fierce opposition in the Arab world.
According to a Hamas official, a proposal for a ceasefire calls for greater humanitarian aid and an Israeli withdrawal from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza over the course of a six-week ceasefire.
To restart the deadlocked negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release agreement, foreign envoys were scheduled to convene in Qatar shortly.
Israel intends to participate in the negotiations, and according to Netanyahu’s office, a cabinet meeting was held on Sunday night to determine the delegation’s mandate; the outcome was not immediately known.
