Some hooded and shooting in the air, dozens of Israeli soldiers order the men taking refuge in the al-Chifa hospital to surrender: the battle around the largest hospital in Gaza is now taking place inside and at the foot of the building, says a journalist working with AFP on site.
Israeli soldiers shout through loudspeakers in heavily accented Arabic: “All men 16 years and older, raise your hands in the air and exit the buildings toward the inner courtyard to surrender.”
Immediately, hundreds of young people left the various services of the immense complex, in the west of Gaza City, where the fighting between Israeli tanks and Hamas fighters, in power in Gaza, supported by their allies, is concentrated. of Islamic Jihad.
These two organizations are considered “terrorists” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
According to the UN, around 2,300 people, including patients, caregivers and displaced people, are in al-Chifa, surrounded for several days by Israeli tanks.
Generators shut down
According to doctors and international NGOs, none of these civilians have until now been able to leave for fear of being targeted by gunfire.
On Wednesday, according to the journalist collaborating with AFP, soldiers were shooting at the windows when someone stuck their head through.
Lines of Palestinians, hands in the air, converged on the large interior courtyard, reported the journalist, who had been stuck for several days in the hospital where he had gone for interviews.
A thousand people stood in the courtyard, standing with their hands in the air.
The Israeli army arrested some 200 people according to this journalist, and made them strip down to their underwear.
Soldiers distributed water to civilians who, forced to flee their homes under bombardment, had taken refuge in al-Chifa.
In the corridors of the hospital, where teams of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) operate, soldiers fire into the air as they go from room to room, visibly looking for Hamas fighters.
Women and crying children are searched. Others must pass under a terminal equipped with a reconnaissance camera, the same ones that were installed along the evacuation corridors to the south of the Gaza Strip, according to the journalist.
Some injured people and their relatives are questioned by Israeli soldiers.
In the immediate vicinity of al-Chifa, MSF members reported hearing gunshots and explosions on Wednesday morning.
Israeli tanks completely surround the complex, according to the journalist on site. Others entered the site, stationed in front of various departments including the emergency room.
No evacuation plan was known as of midday Wednesday.
Natalie Thurtle, one of MSF’s medical coordinators in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, explained to AFP that it would not be “possible” to evacuate patients who for the most part “cannot move”, in particular given the “security” situation.
For years, Israel has accused Hamas of using Gaza’s hospitals as bases, of having dug a network of tunnels under al-Chifa and of using its patients as “human shields”.
The Islamist movement and the Ministry of Health in Gaza deny this and have called for the visit of “international commissions of inquiry”.
On October 9, two days after the start of the war, Israel imposed a “complete siege” on the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.
Already in recent days, the generators have stopped running due to lack of fuel. Water tanks, obstetric equipment and the medical oxygen storage center were damaged, the UN said on Sunday, reporting three nurses killed.
Incubators
At least nine premature babies died after being taken out of incubators, while 27 patients in intensive care died because they no longer had ventilators, according to the Hamas health ministry.
A mass grave dug in the complex already contains “179 bodies” according to the hospital director, Doctor Mohammed Abou Salmiya.
The Israeli army claims to have sent “medical teams” and “Arabic-speaking” soldiers for its “targeted operation” on “a specific area” of al-Chifa.
She also announced that she had “delivered incubators, baby food and medical equipment” alongside her “operation”.
While the UN and international NGOs repeat that a hospital “should never be attacked”, for Israel, the entry of its troops into al-Chifa does not violate international law.
For Hamas, it is “a war crime and a crime against humanity”.
A few hours after the start of the Israeli raid, Mme MSF’s Thurtle called for “international humanitarian law to be respected.” “There are many signs that this is not the case,” she added.
On October 7, Hamas launched an attack on an unprecedented scale in Israel. Around 1,200 people were killed, the majority civilians, according to Israeli authorities. Since then, the Israeli army has bombed the Gaza Strip day and night. More than 11,000 Palestinians were killed in these strikes, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, two-thirds of them women and children.