Hamas claims the Israeli army issued an ultimatum to evacuate the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip within an hour
The Islamist militia Hamas, an organization classified as terrorist by the EU and US that has de facto ruled Gaza since 2007, has said that the Israeli army has given the doctors, patients and displaced people remaining in the Gaza Strip an hour at Al Shifa Hospital , which is located in Gaza City (north of the enclave) and is the largest in the Gaza Strip, has abandoned it. “The occupying army is giving doctors, patients and displaced people the opportunity to evacuate Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza within an hour,” the Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas’ political arm, said, without providing further details, Efe reports News agency.
According to the Israeli Defense Forces, Hamas has its main operations center in the basement of the hospital. The situation at Al Shifa Hospital is one of the most serious medical centers in the Gaza Strip as it is at the center of the fighting, Israeli tanks and soldiers are in parts of the complex and there is no fuel or energy for further treatment of patients.
The head of the orthopedics department, Adnan al Bursh, quoted by the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health, assured that the order had caused a “serious state of panic and fear” in the hospital, stressing that doctors would not leave the hospital. Hospital without patients. Gaza’s Director General of Health, Munir al Bursh, has denounced that Israeli troops have taken bodies from the hospital’s morgue as well as the cemetery dug up inside the medical facilities.
On Friday, Hamas Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidreh told Agence France Presse that 24 patients had died in hospital “in the last 48 hours” due to a lack of electricity. Since Thursday evening, the Israeli army has destroyed three buildings in the western part of the hospital complex: the hospital’s cafeteria, its maintenance department and its human resources department, according to a France Presse journalist at the center.
The facility houses at least 2,000 people, including patients, medical staff and those displaced by the bombings. Israel claimed on Thursday to have found the entrance to a tunnel used by Hamas near the hospital, as well as a vehicle prepared for the Palestinian militia’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israeli territory, although images of the tunnel and vehicle could not be independently verified.