The Palestinian Red Crescent reported on Sunday two new hospitals under siege in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army, which has been carrying out a similar operation for about a week in the main hospital center in the north of the Palestinian territory.
Since the start of the war against Hamas launched in October, Israeli forces have carried out several operations in and around hospitals, where they say they are looking for Palestinian fighters.
A volunteer killed
According to the Red Crescent, military vehicles arrived on Sunday morning near the Nasser and al-Amal hospitals, in the town of Khan Younes, in the south of the territory, against a backdrop of “intense” shooting and bombardment.
The relief organization added in a statement that one of its volunteers was killed at dawn by Israeli fire while he was in al-Amal.
AFP contacted the army on this specific case, without obtaining an immediate response.
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According to the Red Crescent, calls were made by drones asking all occupants of al-Amal hospital to leave undressed, while the army blocked the doors of the establishment with earthen dikes.
“All our teams are in extreme danger and cannot move,” adds the rescue company.
Strikes on “terrorist infrastructure”
The Israeli army said on Sunday that it had launched an operation in the al-Amal neighborhood “with a view to continuing to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and eliminate terrorist actors in the area”.
According to her, the operation began with airstrikes on around 40 targets, including military sites, tunnels and other “terrorist infrastructure”.
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Since last Monday, the army has been carrying out a major operation on the large al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza City, where it claims to have killed some 170 fighters and promises to stay until it finds the last.
A first operation of this type had already taken place in al-Shifa last November, as well as in the Nasser and al-Amal hospitals in Khan Younes in February.