Gaza’s government media office warned on Wednesday of a potential massacre at Al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli soldiers stormed the medical complex early Wednesday.
In a statement, the office called the Israeli raid at the hospital “a war crime and a crime against humanity”.
”The Israeli army raided the hospital despite the presence of over 9,000 people, between medical staff, patients, and displaced Palestinians,” the statement said.
The statement also held Israel, the United States, and the international community “fully responsible for the safety of thousands of people inside the facility.”
AL-JAZEERA: The occupation forces are detaining several displaced people after storming the complex.
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From Inside the Hospital
WAFA correspondent, who is besieged inside the hospital, said that the Israeli tanks stormed the courtyard of the Shifa Medical Complex from the western side, amid heavy gunfire, as Israeli snipers were deployed around the complex.
He pointed out that the occupation forces stormed the new surgical and emergency buildings, where patients and medical staff were present.
He added that the Israeli soldiers were searching the buildings inside the complex, amid heavy gunfire.
The Director General of Hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Muhammad Zaqout, said in an interview with Al-Jazeera that Israeli soldiers opened fire at those who left the corridor in an attempt to leave.
AL-JAZEERA (CITING SOURCES FROM WITHIN AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL) Israeli tanks were still present inside the courtyard of the complex. the Israeli army blew up a warehouse of medicines and medical devices inside the Al-Shifa Complex.
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Israeli Claims
Israel claims that the Al-Shifa Medical Complex hosts a Hamas command center, but the Palestinian Resistance movement completely denies this version and demands a United Nations committee to investigate the claim.
A spokesman for the Israeli army said that the operation was based on “intelligence information”.
War crime
The Director-General of the Government Media Office, Ismail al-Thawabta, said in an interview with Al-Jazeera that “the occupation will fail to prove that Al-Shifa Hospital is the headquarters of the Resistance leadership.”
He pointed out that “it is expected that the occupation will bring weapons into the hospital, arrange them in a specific way, and then photograph them.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement said in a statement that Israel is unable to achieve any military goals in Gaza, so it is taking control of civilians and patients at Al-Shifa Hospital.
HAMAS: We hold Netanyahu and Biden responsible for the occupation’s storming of the Shifa complex.
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— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) November 15, 2023
Red Cross spokesman in Gaza, Hisham Muhanna, said that they are ready to exercise their role as a neutral mediator, but that at the moment, there is a “lack of the necessary security measures”, Al-Jazeera reported.
There are about 1,500 medical staff members, 700 patients, 39 premature babies, and 7,000 displaced people in the Al-Shifa Complex, according to a statement by the government media office in Gaza.
For six days, the hospital and its surroundings, as well as other hospitals in the Gaza Strip, have been subjected to continuous bombing by the Israeli army.
(PC, AJA, WAFA)
Thank you for giving voice to the silenced. A people without a human heart or even a modicum of mercy, the Israelis and their fans, represent something truly terrifying: the death of compassion. Not only do they espouse the butchery of Palestinians, they gleeful abet the crime, celebratlng and funding the genocide of Palestinians. Their minds, souls, and hearts have mutated; they have ceased being human, a regessive evolution back to simian roots. Dead souls are not moved by the unspeakale horror visited on Palestinians by Israel, a superpower intent on erasing a brave people.
But even nuclear bombs cannot kill a dream, a dream that dwells deep in the soul, safe from any weapon.