Israeli army raids Shifa hospital – overview Glencore takes over most of the coal business from Canada’s Teck

Israeli forces have invaded part of the Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip. The army announced this via Telegram on Wednesday evening.

The situation is still confusing and difficult to assess, as access to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is very difficult.

That happened

Israeli forces have invaded part of the Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip. Based on intelligence information, soldiers “conducted a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specific area of ​​Shifa Hospital,” the army said in Telegram early Wednesday morning. “We call on all Hamas terrorists present in the hospital to surrender.” According to media reports, the armed forces had warned authorities in the Gaza Strip about the operation.

The army had contacted a Palestinian health official and informed them of the impending attack, a spokesman for the Islamist Hamas-controlled Health Ministry told Al-Jazeera television on Wednesday. Clashes have been going on for days between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian extremists near hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip.

That’s what the Israeli army says

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari has warned of action against suspected Islamist Hamas infrastructure in hospitals in the Gaza Strip. It has been emphasized again and again in recent weeks that Hamas’s “continued military use of Shifa Hospital will cause it to lose its special protection under international law,” Hagari said on Tuesday evening. “We are forced to take careful and precise action against Hamas’ military infrastructure in the hospitals.” He called on Hamas fighters to “surrender so as not to further endanger anyone in the hospitals.”

That is why Shifa Hospital is so important

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.

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 therefore partly supplied with electricity that is derived from the hospital and there are several entrances in and around the hospital. However, there is no evidence that can be independently verified.

The US agrees

According to information from the White House, the US also has information that the Islamist Hamas is using hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes. “Hamas and members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are using some hospitals in the Gaza Strip – including the Shifa Clinic – and tunnels beneath them to conceal and advance their military operations and to hold hostages,” said the communications director of the National Security Council. in the US, John Kirby, Tuesday.

The Shifa clinic in Gaza city is a “command and control hub” for these groups. Equipment and weapons were also likely to be stored there, it was said. According to Kirby, this information comes “from a variety of proprietary intelligence methods.” At the same time, he made clear that the US did not support airstrikes on hospitals or gun battles in the area. “Innocent people, helpless people, sick people” who were “just trying to get the medical care they deserve” should not be caught in the crossfire. Hamas mixed with the civilian population. Using the Shifa clinic for military purposes is a war crime and makes the deployment of the Israeli army “significantly more difficult,” Kirby 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 had already intensified

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

According to a doctor who works there, there has been heavy fighting around Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip in recent days. “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 indicated that fighting for the hospital was 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

The situation in Shifa hospital is “terrible and life-threatening,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X on Sunday.

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 shortages throughout the Gaza Strip

Humanitarian support for more than two million people in the Gaza Strip could soon collapse due to a lack of fuel, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). “UNRWA raised the alarm about the fuel situation three weeks ago, warning of rapidly dwindling supplies and the impact on life-saving measures. Since then, we have heavily rationed fuel consumption and, working closely with Israeli authorities, gained access to existing limited quantities stored in a depot in the Gaza Strip. The depot is now empty,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said on Wednesday. “It’s easy. Without fuel the humanitarian operation in Gaza will end. Many more people will suffer and probably die.”

(lacquer, with material from the Keystone-SDA news agency)