The Shifa hospital unrecognizable after Israel’s attack

Two weeks after the Israeli military entered the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the soldiers withdrew. The Gaza Strip’s largest hospital lies in ruins.

In the two weeks, Israeli special forces have captured hundreds of Palestinians. According to the Israeli military IDF, the prisoners are Palestinian militants.

Shifa Hospital is left as a wasteland of destroyed buildings.

When Israeli forces entered the hospital, Palestinian authorities warned that seriously wounded patients were being treated there.

The IDF, for its part, justified the attack by saying that they were purposefully going after Hamas soldiers who they claim were deliberately hiding in the hospital among vulnerable civilians.

Over a hundred patients

Thousands of Palestinians – 6,200 according to the Israeli military – were at the hospital, which was one of the few places in the Gaza Strip that still had access to electricity and water.

At least 21 patients died during the military operation, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X late Sunday.

According to the WHO chief, there were over a hundred patients in the hospital during the attack, including four children, 28 patients in critical condition and many suffering from infected wounds and dehydration.

Both Hamas and the doctors at the Shifa hospital deny any armed presence at the hospital, while IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari claims that the Palestinian armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad had turned the site into a command center.

Must have plowed up a mass grave

Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run media office in Gaza, claims that the IDF killed 400 Palestinians in and around the hospital. Among them was said to have been a female doctor and her son, another doctor, and in addition the IDF is said to have put the hospital out of business.

Furthermore, he and several witnesses claim that Israeli bulldozers plowed up a mass grave constructed in November in the Shifa hospital’s courtyard, leaving many bodies exposed.

– This is a crime against humanity, says al-Thawabta.

Several doctors and civilians at the destroyed hospital site told the AFP news agency on Monday that at least 20 bodies had been found, some of which had been run over by military vehicles.

Arrest 900 suspects

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari says three of the main buildings have been destroyed in the fighting – the main medical ward, the maternity ward and an annex known as the Qatari building – after Hamas fighters refused to surrender.

– They use these places, they know that it is a safe haven, they know that they use them with intention as their command and control centres, he says.

According to him, 200 Palestinian militants and two Israeli soldiers were killed during the military operation at the Shifa hospital. Furthermore, he says that 900 suspected militants were arrested, of which 500 must have belonged to Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The IDF also claims that it identified six officials from Hamas’s military wing who were killed inside the hospital during the military operation. In addition, they claim to have obtained weapons and valuable intelligence.

Claims the IDF arrested patients

However, Hamas claims that Israeli forces only arrested 350 people who were inside the Shifa hospital. Some of these must have been patients, displaced persons and tens of people from the nearby area.

Images on social media that have not been verified show dead people, some covered in dirty sheets, scattered around the destroyed hospital.

– I haven’t stopped crying since I came here, terrible massacres were committed by the occupiers here, says 43-year-old Samir Basel to the Reuters news agency via a messaging app as he walks around the area.

– The place is destroyed, buildings are burned out and destroyed. This place must be rebuilt, there is no Shifa hospital anymore, he continues.

Nearly 33,000 Palestinians are said to have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October. On Monday morning, the IDF announced that 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war broke out.