The government of the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza said 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured on Friday in an Israeli attack on the Al-Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the area under Israeli fire.
• Also read: Israel agrees to take daily “breaks.”
• Also read: Fierce fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, thousands of civilians are fleeing
“Thirteen martyrs and dozens were injured today in an Israeli attack on the al-Shifa compound” in central Gaza City, said Salameh Maarouf, head of Hamas’ press office.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on such an operation.
For more than a month, it has been bombing the Gaza Strip to “destroy” the Palestinian Islamist movement, which is in power in Gaza in retaliation for an unprecedented bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7th.
“Israeli tanks fired on Al-Shifa Hospital,” its director, Doctor Mohammad Abou Salmiya, said at the scene.
On Thursday evening, an Israeli army spokesman said an army division was conducting major operations in an area “very, very close to Shifa Hospital.”
Witnesses reported Israeli tanks approaching several other hospitals west of Gaza City, in the north of the Palestinian territory.
“Israeli tanks are laying siege to four hospitals in western Gaza City,” endangering tens of thousands of patients and displaced people who have taken refuge there, the Hamas Health Ministry said Friday.
Since the start of the war, the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) have denounced Israeli air and artillery attacks on hospitals and ambulances.
A 32-year-old father, Abou Mohammed, told AFP that he and 15 of his relatives had sought refuge in al-Shifa hospital after bomb attacks on his neighborhood in northeast Gaza City.
“There is no safe place, the army has attacked al-Shifa, I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said. “There is shooting at the hospital from the south, so we are afraid to go out,” he added.
Witnesses also reported heavy fighting in the north of the Gaza Strip, which led to hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing south on orders from the Israeli army.
The Israeli army attacked Gaza City throughout the night and AFPTV footage showed flares and red mushroom clouds disappearing in a thick cloud of smoke over the area where fighting was raging with Hamas.
For years, Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals for attacks and hiding tunnels, something the movement categorically denies.
According to the Hamas Health Ministry, Israeli bombings of Gaza since October 7 have claimed 10,812 lives, mostly civilians, including 4,412 children.
On the Israeli side, at least 1,400 people have died since the start of the war; according to the authorities, most of them were civilians who were killed on the day of the Hamas attack.