Israel claims that Hamas is using the largest hospital in Gaza as a command headquarters, and it has initiated a “targeted operation” there. Thousands of ill and displaced Gazans are being housed at the hospital, and this decision may increase worldwide criticism of Israel.
Inside the al-Shifa hospital, Israel’s military claimed to be conducting “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas”.
Declaring that they had “conveyed to the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours,” the Israel Defence Forces released a statement. Regretfully, it did not.” The IDF has also requested that the Hamas agents at the hospital turn themselves in.
According to UN estimates, days of intense fighting and aerial bombardment have confined at least 2,300 patients, staff members, and displaced people inside the hospital.
As of Tuesday, 36 infants were being cared for at the al-Shifa hospital, according to medical personnel there, who stated that despite an Israeli attempt to provide incubators for an evacuation, there was no obvious way to transfer them. Since the al-Shifa hospital ran out of gasoline over the weekend to power the generators that had kept their incubators running, three premature newborns have already passed away.
According to relief organisations and hospital employees, the current state of affairs is already “catastrophic,” with families living in the corridors with little food or water, medical procedures being performed without anaesthesia, and the air filled with the stench of decaying bodies.
Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya stated, “There are bodies littered in the hospital complex and there is no longer electricity at the mortuaries.”
According to claims made by both Israel and the US, Hamas agents have been utilising Gaza’s hospitals as underground tunnels to conceal command centres and hostages.
Joe Biden, the US president, has been charged by Hamas as being “wholly responsible” for the activities at the al-Shifa hospital. “We hold the occupation (Israel) and President Biden wholly responsible for the assault on the Al-Shifa medical complex,” Hamas stated in a statement.
According to Israel, rockets from Gaza are still being fired into southern Israel, where Hamas is believed to have murdered over 1,200 people and kidnapped over 200 more last month.
Regional tensions have been heightened by the conflict, with lethal cross-border exchanges between the Israeli army and the Hezbollah organisation in Lebanon becoming more frequent. Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel’s justification of self-defence.
