Several hundred people, including many injured, were evacuated on foot on Saturday from the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. It has been besieged for several days by the Israeli army, which accuses it of being used as a Hamas hideout, which the Islamist organization denies.
Entire columns of doctors, sick people, wounded people, some mutilated, advancing on foot. The al-Chifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, was largely evacuated on Saturday, November 18, after more than three days of siege by the Israeli army.
Here is what we know about this evacuation, on the 43rd day of a war which has already left 1,200 dead in Israel and more than 12,000 dead in the Gaza Strip, according to figures from both camps that no source on place or image does not provide support.
Hundreds of people evacuated
According to the UN, before the evacuation the hospital accommodated nearly 2,300 patients, caregivers and people displaced by the Israeli offensive. But several hundred people left the hospital on foot, according to an AFP journalist on site.
On Saturday morning, only five doctors and 120 patients remained in the establishment who could not be moved because of their condition, according to the head of the plastic surgery department of the hospital. on. To AFP, the Hamas Ministry of Health also mentions the presence of “premature babies”without specifying their number.
Columns of displaced people towards the South
According to AFP, the people taken from the hospital are moving along a corridor opened by the Israeli army towards the Salaheddine road. This road leads to the south of the Gaza Strip.
It is in this area that the Israeli army wants to relocate the 1.1 million inhabitants of the north of the small Palestinian territory, where the ground fighting against Hamas has so far been concentrated. She therefore opened a corridor leading to the Salaheddine road on Saturday. According to the UN, more than two-thirds of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million residents have already been displaced by the war.
The vagueness around the evacuation order
Both camps blame each other for the request to evacuate the establishment. According to AFP, Israeli soldiers ordered over a loudspeaker early in the morning to evacuate the hospital. “within an hour”.
The director of the hospital, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, also told AFP that the Israeli army called him to demand “the evacuation of patients, the injured, the displaced and the caregivers and that everyone goes on foot to the corniche” coastal area bordering the hospital, west of Gaza City, within an hour. He had already refused a previous evacuation order received by telephone during the week, citing in particular the complexity of the operation.
For its part, the Israeli army denied being behind it, assuring in a message on Telegram that it was only “respond to a request” of the hospital director. IDF says process only concerns “additional Gazans who want to evacuate”and that’“at no time did the Israeli Defense Forces order the evacuation of patients or medical personnel”.
A hospital targeted by a “targeted operation” by the Israeli army
The IDF has been carrying out a military siege on this hospital since Wednesday, accusing Hamas of using it as a hideout and using the sick as “human shields”. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas categorically denies these allegations and accuses Israel of using them as a pretext.
For days, Israeli soldiers have been entering al-Chifa services to question those inside and search “building by building” the medical complex. In recent days, Israeli soldiers have destroyed several departments with explosives, including the ground floor of the surgery department.
The electricity stopped working there. Its department heads report that several dozen patients have died “because vital medical equipment stopped working due to the power outage”.
The Israeli army claims to have found in the building “munitions, weapons and military equipment”. “We have proof that the hospital was used for military and terrorist purposes, contrary to international laws”army spokesperson Daniel Hagari told the press.