in Gaza, residents recount the horror after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Al-Chifa hospital

The Israeli army withdrew from Al-Chifa on Monday morning after twelve days of fighting against Hamas militiamen. The largest hospital in Gaza is now in ruins and strewn with corpses, residents tell franceinfo.

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An aerial view of the ruins in the Al-Shifa hospital area in Gaza, April 1, 2014;  (OMAR EL QATTAA / ANADOLU via AFP)

The largest hospital in Gaza, in ruins, devastated with many dead. This is what is left behind by the Israeli army which withdrew on Monday April 1 from Al-Chifa in the center of Gaza City after twelve days of fighting against Hamas militiamen.

This is the second time since the start of the war that the troops of the Jewish state have launched an offensive on the establishment which it considers to be a Hamas command center. Al-Chifa was the heart of Gaza City. Today, the hospital is in ruins. Three of the four wings of this vast complex, including the emergency room and the maternity ward, are inoperable.

“Leaving Gaza would be a relief”

There are also many corpses there, testifies Saïd, a local resident. “There are so many deaths and these terrible images of all these bodies discovered after the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Al-Chifa hospital,” he reports.

“Everything is destroyed. Both the various buildings of the hospital and the surrounding buildings… Injured people treated in the establishment were buried.”

Said, a resident of Gaza

at franceinfo

“We found bodies thrown among the trash and human limbs scattered everywhere”, also testifies Saïd. However, the Israeli army announced that it had helped more than 6,000 civilians who had taken refuge in the hospital to flee to southern Gaza. Information impossible to verify.

Mohammed, who does not live very far away, is considering leaving for the first time since the start of the war: “NOTyour sadness is absolute. I am devastated by this level of violence and the scale of the destruction caused by the Israeli occupying forces.” These “withdrew from Al-Chifa hospital and the entire surrounding area”confirms Mohammed, but “we too, with my family, would like to leave. Leaving Gaza would be a relief”he confesses.

For the Israeli army, the offensive on Al-Chifa is a success. It counted 200 suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad militiamen dead and nearly a thousand arrests.

In Gaza, residents recount the horror after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Al-Chifa hospital at the microphone of Thibault Lefèvre


source site-24