JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli forces have withdrawn from Gaza’s Al Chifa hospital after a two-week operation, the Israeli army announced on Monday.
Hundreds of residents flocked to the neighborhood of Al Chifa, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip before the war, to witness the damage caused to the large residential areas around the facility in the heart of the city of Gaza.
The Israeli army said it had killed hundreds of gunmen in clashes in the hospital area and seized weapons and intelligence documents. Hamas and medical staff refute any armed presence in hospitals.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza media office said the Israeli army killed 400 Palestinians around the hospital, including a female doctor and her son and another practitioner, and left the facility out of operation. .
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Israel had no immediate comment.
“The occupation burned and destroyed all the buildings within the Al Shifa medical complex. They bulldozed the courtyard, buried dozens of bodies of martyrs in the ruins, turning the hospital into a cemetery,” said Ismail Al Thawabta, director of the media office.
“This is a crime against humanity,” he continued.
A spokesman for the Gaza Emergency Service said Israeli soldiers executed two people whose bodies were found handcuffed in the compound, and used bulldozers to dig up the ground and exhume the bodies.
Reuters was unable to verify the comments and the Israeli military was not immediately available for comment.
“NOTHING LEFT OF THE HOSPITAL”
Images posted on social media showed bodies of Palestinians lying on the floor of the building, some wrapped in dirty blankets.
Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of these videos.
“I haven’t stopped crying since I arrived here, horrible massacres are being committed by the occupation here,” Samir Basel, 43, told Reuters via a chat app.
“The place is destroyed, the buildings burned and destroyed. The place needs to be rebuilt, there is no more Al Chifa hospital,” he added.
A video seen by Reuters shows Palestinians returning to the area to collect mattresses and belongings from the rubble of the compound in which they had taken refuge.
“We evacuated in the hope of coming back and finding our belongings. I have nothing left. My house was bombed and everything was gone. I have nothing left,” one woman told Reuters.
“I sought refuge in schools but was told there was no place for me. Where should I go?”
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 63 in the last 24 hours, in the Israeli military operation, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The Hamas attack in Israel on October 7 left 1,200 dead and 253 hostages.
(Dan Williams and Nidal al-Mughrabi; French version Paris office)
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