2023-11-15 04:24:00
Photo: AFP
The Israeli armed forces reported this Tuesday that they were carrying out a “precise and selective operation” in the Al Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, where it earlier reported – in coincidence with the United States – that a command center was operating. of the Islamist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “is carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specific area of Al Shifa hospital, based on intelligence information and an operational need.”
“The hospital management was informed in advance of the entry into the complex,” they added in a statement released tonight, according to the AFP and Europa Press news agencies.
The IDF assured that medical teams and Arabic-speaking people were part of the operation, in order “not to cause any harm to civilians used by Hamas as human shields.”
The document vindicated the actions of the IDF by maintaining that they were allowing the “large-scale evacuation” of the hospital, maintaining “a regular dialogue with the authorities” of the establishment and bringing incubators, other medical equipment and baby food to leave there as part of the operation.
The Al Shifa hospital was the center of controversy in recent days, after Israel and the United States maintained that a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command center operated there, and the first of these organizations rejected that accusation.
“In recent weeks, the IDF publicly warned time and again that Hamas’ continued military use of Al Shifa Hospital jeopardizes its protected status under international law and gave sufficient time to stop this illegal abuse of the hospital. , was noted in tonight’s statement.
“Yesterday, the IDF again informed the relevant Gaza authorities that all military activities inside the hospital must cease within 12 hours; Unfortunately, they did not do so,” the document added.
Photo: ONU
Shortly before, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip under Hamas control had said that “the (Israeli) occupation reported its intentions to assault the Al Shifa complex in the next few minutes,” according to the Palestinian agency Maan News.
“The IDF contacted us by phone and asked us to go near the windows or doors of the hospital,” added Health Ministry sources. which confirmed that communications and electricity in the establishment were cut off.
Meanwhile, hospital staff were working to evacuate patients in intensive care, fearing that they would suffer asphyxiation as a result of the bombing directed at part of the place.
The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that there was no water, electricity or food in the hospital, and maintained that it had been trying to evacuate patients for three days without success.due to the shots fired at ambulances and people trying to get out of there.
Earlier, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirbystated that Hamas and Islamic Jihad “operate a command and control core from Al Shifa, in Gaza City.”
He added that Both groups “stored weapons there and are prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility.”
Shortly after, Hamas rejected this statement in a statement in which it maintained that “these statements give the green light to the Israeli occupation to commit more brutal massacres against hospitals, with the aim of destroying Gaza’s health system and displacing Palestinians.”
In the text, written in English and distributed in the Palestinian territories, Hamas specified that it “condemns and rejects” these accusations and maintains that “the United States is directly responsible for allowing Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.”
The siege of Al Shifa hospital began more than four days ago and led to the definitive collapse of medical care, after the center confirmed that it suspended its activities due to lack of supplies, and the UN stated that throughout the northern area Only one hospital remained operating in the Strip.
The director of the hospital, Mohamad Abu Salmiya, said this Tuesday that staff had dug a mass grave inside the facilities and at least 179 people had already been buried there – including seven premature babies who died due to lack of electricity to feed incubators – faced with the impossibility of leaving the place.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that at least 600 patients, between 200 and 500 workers and 1,500 displaced people remained in Al Shifa.
Israel promised to destroy Hamas in response to this organization’s surprise attack on its territory, which occurred last October 7 and left some 1,200 dead, most of them civilians, and some 240 hostages, including twenty Argentine nationals.
For its part, Israel’s response in Gaza left some 11,320 dead as of Tuesday, mostly civilians and among them 4,650 children, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza, a territory governed by Hamas.
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