Schifa Hospital: This is what we know about the battle for the ‘symbol of inhumanity’. That is why Sahra Wagenknecht does not want to become chairman of her own party

Since Friday there have been reports of fighting near one of the main hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Shifa Hospital. The situation is still confusing and difficult to assess, as access to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is very difficult.

Nevertheless, it seems clear: the hospital in Gaza City has already become a “symbol of the enemy’s inhumanity” – or so the New York Times describes it.

For Israel, Shifa is intended as evidence of how the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas abuses society’s most vulnerable as human shields and cannon fodder in its battle for the favor of the global public. And according to most Palestinians, the obsession with Shifa Hospital is proof of Israel’s willingness to unjustly attack even its most helpless civilians.

That is why Shifa Hospital is so important

With 700 beds, the Schifa Hospital is the most important hospital complex in the coastal strip. According to Israeli security authorities, Hamas militants have spent much of the past 16 years building a huge command complex beneath the hospital, along with similar bases among other medical facilities.

Israeli military intelligence said in a statement carried by The New York Times that there were “several underground complexes used by the leaders of the terrorist organization Hamas to control their activities.” The complex is partly supplied with electricity derived from the hospital and there are several entrances in and around the hospital. However, there is no evidence that can be independently verified.

U.S. officials generally agree with the view that there are Hamas bases among hospitals, citing their own intelligence services. In an interview with the CBS TV channel, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not confirm the existence of a complex under Shifa Hospital. However, he said Hamas has a track record of using hospitals and other civilian facilities for its command centers, to store its weapons and to house fighters. “And that is a violation of the laws of war,” Sullivan said.

Hamas denies the existence of facilities under hospitals. The hospital’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, described the Israeli accusations as “false” in an interview on Friday. Speaking to British broadcaster BBC, a senior doctor at the clinic also denied the Israeli side’s claim that Hamas fighters were in the hospital. That was “a big lie,” said chief surgeon Marwan Abu Saada. “We have medical staff, we have patients and displaced people. Nothing else.”

The fighting becomes more intense

While the Israeli army announced that there was a safe corridor for the evacuation of civilians, people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside.

According to a doctor who works there, heavy fighting continues around Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. “We can hardly treat the patients in the hospital and we are in the middle of a war zone,” the doctor at the largest clinic in the coastal strip, Ahmed Muchallalati, told Al-Jazeera news channel on Sunday. “There are ongoing airstrikes and drones circling the area around the hospital.”

The Israeli army’s announcement that civilians could leave the hospital via the eastern side was a “big lie,” the doctor said. On Saturday, a family of five tried just this. Then she was shot. “So they came back injured,” Muchallalati said.

The Israeli army denies targeting medical facilities. However, she wrote in a statement on Sunday that it allowed citizens and patients to leave Shifa Hospital. This suggests that fighting over the hospital is likely to intensify.

As the New York Times reports, Israeli officials said the hospital had been spared in previous Israeli operations out of respect for the civilian population — but at the price of leaving the underlying buildings intact. This is a mistake that Israel will not repeat this time, the officials said.

Catastrophic situation in the hospital

According to the WHO, contact with employees of the Schifa Hospital was restored on Sunday. Accordingly, the situation is “terrible and life-threatening,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus writes about X.

There has been no electricity or water for three days. The continued shelling and bombing in the region has worsened the already critical situation, Ghebreyesus said. “Tragically, the number of patient deaths has increased significantly,” the WHO chief continued. The hospital no longer functions as a hospital.

Due to the lack of electricity and fighting in their area, other hospitals have already had to move patients – including to Schifa Hospital. But there appears to be little help there for the time being: clinic boss Mohammad Abu Salamia said on Sunday that all operating rooms are currently out of use. “Anyone who needs surgery dies and we cannot do anything for them,” said Abu Salamia.

There are more than 2,000 people in the Shifa clinic, including probably more than 600 patients and about 1,500 displaced persons, the WHO itself wrote on Platform X on Monday, citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health. This meant that patients could no longer receive dialysis. Premature babies were also transferred to operating rooms without incubators. According to several media reports, there are indications that at least one premature baby has already died.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said at least five wounded patients died in hospital on Saturday. Without fuel to run generators, the hospital was plunged into darkness, the ministry and the hospital’s administrator said.

Fuel dispute

According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the lack of fuel is also Hamas’s fault. Accordingly, the terrorist organization prevented the clinic from using 300 liters of fuel that Israeli soldiers had placed in containers next to the hospital on Saturday evening.

The head of Shifa Hospital in Gaza later denied this. Clinic boss Mohammad Abu Salamia spoke on Sunday about a “lie and slander”. Abu Salamia did not dismiss reports of container dumping. However, he said this amount would not be enough to run hospital generators for “fifteen minutes”. The team also feared being shot at if they left the clinic to take the containers with them.

US: No fighting in hospitals

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS on Sunday that the US had urged Israel to avoid fighting near hospitals in the Gaza Strip. “The United States does not want hospital battles where innocent people and patients receiving medical care are caught in the crossfire,” Sullivan said.

With material from the Keystone-SDA news agency.