The China Mail - 'Raise your hands': Israel raids hospital in centre of Gaza war

"All men 16 years and above, raise your hands," a soldier shouted in accented Arabic through a loudspeaker, to those sheltering inside Al-Shifa hospital, which has become the centre of fierce urban combat for days.

"Exit the building towards the courtyard and surrender," the soldier ordered, according to a journalist who visited the embattled hospital several days ago for interviews and was trapped inside because of the fighting outside.

About 1,000 male Palestinians, their hands above their heads, were soon led into the vast hospital courtyard, some of them stripped naked by Israeli soldiers checking them for weapons or explosives, the journalist told AFP.

The army labelled the raid a "precise and targeted" operation against Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched the October 7 attacks and which Israel claims is running a command centre in tunnels beneath the clinic.

Israeli and Palestinian officials both reported the overnight military operations at Al-Shifa, the focal point of days of deadly fighting and nearby aerial bombardments.

Witnesses have described conditions inside the hospital as horrific, with medical procedures performed without anaesthetic, families with scant food or water living in corridors, and the stench of decomposing corpses filling the air.

As Israeli forces raced through the corridors, hundreds of young men emerged from different wards, including the maternity section, which was hit in a strike a few days ago, the journalist reported.

Soldiers were firing warning shots as they moved from room to room looking for Hamas militants, he said, adding that the troops were also searching women and children, some of whom were in tears.

- Tanks in hospital complex -

Hamas in its October 7 attack, the worst in Israel's history, killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 hostages back into Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

In Gaza, more than 11,300 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in an intense bombing campaign and ground invasions since, health officials in the Hamas-run territory have said.

In the Shifa hospital operation, several Israeli tanks rolled into the vast hospital complex, the journalist said, adding that Israeli troops had also entered the main emergency department and other wards.

The Israeli army, in a statement early Wednesday, described it as "a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area" of the facility.

The army said it had delivered incubators, baby food and medical supplies to the hospital during the operation.

"Our medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need," it said.

Gaza's Hamas government accused the Israeli army of committing a "war crime and crime against humanity".

Over the past few days Israel has encircled Al-Shifa in north Gaza, charging that tunnels under the facility were being used as hideouts by Hamas commanders.

The White House said that US intelligence sources corroborated Israel's claim that Hamas and another militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, had buried an operational "command and control node" under Al-Shifa.

Hamas has denied those charges and stressed the suffering inside the besieged clinic that, like other hospitals, has been without electricity or fuel for generators amid the Israeli siege of the Palestinian territory.

Citing the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, UN humanitarian agency OCHA said 40 patients had died in Al-Shifa on Tuesday.

The hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya said that 179 bodies had been interred in a mass grave inside the complex.

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