This Monday, the Israeli army invaded again the largest hospital in Gaza, Al Shifa, one of the few functioning centers in the north of the Strip.
The Ministry of Health of the Hamas Government has reported deaths and injuries, without specifying, and specified that the facilities house some 30,000 people, including those displaced by the war, the sick and medical personnel.
The raid has generated a major fire in one of the buildings and the smoke has reached the displaced families.
The Israeli Armed Forces speak of clashes in the compound, in which they have killed several militiamen and lost a soldier.
Israel defines it as a “precise operation” based on “intelligence information indicating the use of the hospital by Hamas terrorist commanders to carry out and promote terrorist activity,” and in which more than 80 people have been arrested.
The Israeli army assures that it has the center under control, with armor and snipers.
Shots have been heard in the neighborhood and images of a tank at the main entrance are circulating on social media.
The Armed Forces have released a fragment of a video in which shots can be seen against their soldiers from hospital buildings.
“The troops responded by opening fire and identified having hit the target,” the army said.
The troops have dropped leaflets in Arabic on Rimal, the neighborhood of the capital where the hospital is located, warning that they are in “a dangerous combat zone.”
“The army is operating harshly in residential areas to destroy terrorist infrastructure,” says the text of the leaflet, in which it calls on them to head towards Al Mawasi, the southern area where Israel initially intended to direct the hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the north.
The Israeli army already invaded Al Shifa last November, causing surprise and outrage.
In the end, the sick and displaced were evacuated and some of the medical personnel were arrested.
Israel justified the operation in that the hospital hid the Hamas command and control center in a tunnel under the facilities.
He didn't find it.
Also that perhaps he would allow the rescue of some of the then more than 240 hostages in the Strip, but he did not find any held there either.
Negotiations in Qatar
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, used this Sunday the operations against this hospital to exemplify his determination to invade Rafah, in the south of the Strip, the only area in which he has not yet penetrated by land and where more than one million displaced.
“Those who say that the performance in Rafah will not take place are the same ones who said that we would not enter Gaza, we would not perform in [Al] Shifa hospital or in [the city of] Khan Younis, and we would not resume fighting after the truce [late November],” he said.
In an interview with the American television network Fox he made an analogy with the end of World War II (1939-1945): “It is like saying to the allies: 'Don't go to Berlin, leave a quarter of the Nazi army intact' .
The assault on Al Shifa began at dawn, hours before an Israeli delegation left for Qatar to participate in negotiations for a second ceasefire.
At the head will be the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, who will meet later in the day with the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, according to the France Presse agency.
The Israeli Government this Sunday gave the delegation a “broad mandate” to reach the agreement, but also set “red lines” that they should not cross, according to official sources cited by local media.
Follow all the international information on
and
X
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_