2024-03-29 23:31:00
Last week, Israeli forces launched another military operation once morest Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, once once more targeting the sprawling medical center located north of the enclave.
Now in its 11th day, the operation is the second of its kind at the hospital, located in the western part of northern Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) first raided Al-Shifa in November, an operation in which the center’s main building was severely damaged and virtually out of service.
The raid also comes despite the IDF stating in January that it had completed the dismantling of the Hamas command structure in northern Gaza.
Although the IDF claimed that civilians, patients and medical teams were evacuated during the operation, Palestinians in and around Al-Shifa reported civilian casualties and arrests, as well as large-scale destruction in the compound.
Israel, Hamas and civilians have also reported heavy fighting around the hospital, and United Nations officials have stressed that hospitals should not be battlefields.
This is what we know:
Why are Israeli forces raiding Al-Shifa once more?
Israeli forces began their most recent operation there on March 18, saying they are carrying out “precise operational activities once morest terrorists” located in Al-Shifa, a statement also repeated in the November raid.
The IDF had returned in force to Al-Shifa despite Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announcing in January that the most intensive phase of operations in northern Gaza had ended.
On March 26, addressing his troops in a video shared by the Ministry of Defense, Gallant praised the operation, stating that the hospital had been reached “in the blink of an eye” and that Hamas operatives still entrenched in the hospital “are considering their future: surrender or die.”
The Israeli military claimed this month that, over the course of its 11-day operation, it had detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in and around the hospital, and killed dozens of them.
The IDF stated in an update on Wednesday that around Al-Shifa “regarding 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the hospital area since the beginning of the activity.” The IDF also claimed that “terrorists fired at IDF forces from inside and outside the Emergency Room building of Shifa Hospital.”
CNN cannot verify these figures.
Israel has for years claimed that Hamas fighters take shelter in mosques, hospitals and other civilian locations to avoid Israeli attacks. Hamas has repeatedly denied these claims.
Israeli authorities have been repeating the accusations since October 7 and, following their first raid in November, escorted CNN to Gaza to see the mouth of a newly discovered tunnel in the Al-Shifa hospital complex.
The evidence did not establish beyond doubt that there was a Hamas command center under the hospital, as Israel had claimed.
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