GAZA: The Israeli military said it was carrying out a ‘raid’ yesterday against Hamas fighters in Al Shifa Hospital, having urged them to surrender with thousands of Palestinian civilians still sheltering inside Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital.

Medical officials in Gaza say more than 11,000 people are confirmed dead from Israeli strikes, around 40% of them children, and countless others were trapped under rubble.

Dr. Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza health ministry, told Al Jazeera television that Israeli forces had raided the western side of the medical complex.

“There are big explosions and dust entered the areas where we are. We believe an explosion occurred inside the hospital,” Bursh said. Hours later, Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra to Al Jazeera: “The occupation army is now in the basement, and searching the basement. They are inside the complex, shooting and carrying out bombings”.

Israeli forces first raided the surgery and emergency departments, Mohammed Zaqout, the Gaza health ministry’s director of hospitals, told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian chief has said he and Iran’s top diplomat had discussed fears of what an expansion of the Gaza war might entail and had agreed it “would not be good”.

At a Geneva press briefing, United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths voiced deep concern that Israel’s military offensive against Hamas could expand beyond Gaza, “into the north”. “If there is to be a war in the north with Hezbollah and Israel, then I fear the worst,” Griffiths said.

“We can easily imagine the worst because it will be a war that makes even Gaza with its awful horrors of daily struggle look like just a beginning.”

Global calls for a humanitarian ceasefire have mounted in recent days, and the fate of Al Shifa has become a focus of international alarm because of worsening conditions in the facility, where thousands of patients, medical staff and displaced people have been trapped during the brutal Israeli assault on Gaza in the past five weeks.

Israel claims, without any evidence, that Hamas has a command centre underneath Al Shifa and uses the hospital and tunnels beneath it to conceal military operations and to hold captives. Hamas denies it the Israeli claim. A video released by the Israeli military yesterday showed what the spokesperson claimed to be a list of hostages kept in the hospital, but was in fact a work schedule with days written in Arabic. In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed: “Based on intelligence information and an operational necessity, IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa hospital.”

The military added: “The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.” Hamas said on Wednesday that US announcement had effectively given a “green light” for Israel to raid the hospital. The group said it held Israel and US President Joe Biden fully responsible for the operation.

“We do not support striking a hospital from the air and we don’t want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people trying to get medical care they deserve are caught in the crossfire. Hospitals and patients must be protected,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement. Israeli forces have waged fierce street battles against Hamas fighters over the past 10 days before advancing into the centre of Gaza City and surrounding Al Shifa.

Published in The Daily National Courier, November, 16 2023

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