Patients, medical staff and Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza have fled the territory’s largest hospital after it was captured by Israeli forces.
Palestinian officials and the Israeli military have expressed conflicting views about what sparked the mass exodus from Al Shifa Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the hospital director asked them to help those who wanted to leave the hospital do so safely.
The military said it had not ordered an evacuation and that medical personnel were allowed to remain at the hospital to treat patients who could not be transferred.
But Medhat Abbas, a health ministry spokesman in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, said the army ordered the facility evacuated and gave the hospital an hour to remove people.
Meanwhile, the IDF said it was investigating after unconfirmed reports of dozens of deaths at UN schools housing displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza.
The attacks, which Hamas-controlled health authorities blame on Israel, reportedly took place at al-Fakhoura and Tal al-Za’atar schools.
IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told the BBC: “I cannot confirm that this incident is an IDF incident, but we see this post on social media, as do you. We are investigating it.”
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), tweeted: “I have received horrifying images and videos of dozens of people killed and injured in yet another attack.@UNRWA A school housing thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza.
“These attacks must not become commonplace, they must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer.”
At least 47 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, doctors said.
The Israeli military searched Al-Shifa Hospital for signs of a Hamas command center underneath the building (Hamas and hospital staff deny this claim) and called on the thousands of people still there to leave the hospital.
After it became apparent that the evacuation was largely complete, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, a doctor from Shifa, posted on social media that there were about 120 patients left who could not leave, including some in intensive care and premature babies, and that he and five other doctors remained to care for them.
The World Health Organization said it was unclear where those who left the hospital went. Twenty-five hospitals in the Gaza Strip were inoperable due to fuel shortages, damage and other problems, and the remaining 11 were only partially operational.
Israel has said hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip were a key target of its ground offensive to eliminate Hamas, claiming they were used as command centers and weapons depots for the militants, a claim both Hamas and medical personnel deny.
Israeli forces surrounded or entered several hospitals, while others ceased functioning due to dwindling supplies and power outages.
Following the occupation of Shifa, Israel came under pressure to prove its claim that Hamas had located its main command center in and under the hospital.
So far, Israel has shown photographs and videos of weapons caches allegedly found there and the supposed entrance to the tunnel.
Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said: “We are shocked by reports of doctors and seriously ill patients, including premature babies in incubators, being abused at gunpoint by the Israeli army.
“This morning we saw horrific scenes of doctors transporting critically ill patients in beds and wheelchairs from Al Shifa Hospital – a death sentence for hundreds of people who will be forced to forgo life-saving care and travel miles to hospitals that no longer exist . exists operationally.”
The war, now in its seventh week, was sparked by a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7 in which terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted some 240 men, women and children.
More than 11,400 Palestinians have been killed in the war, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities.
Another 2,700 people were reported missing and believed to be buried under the rubble.
The count does not differentiate between civilians and militants, and Israel claims to have killed thousands of militants.
Source: I News
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.