Slaughter...

Israeli troops and tanks raid Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital

By Helen Regan, Abeer Salman and David Shortell

Israel said its military launched a “targeted” operation against Hamas early Wednesday morning inside Gaza’s largest hospital, where thousands of Palestinians are believed to be sheltering.

Conditions at Al-Shifa Hospital, which has run out of fuel and is no longer considered operational, have deteriorated rapidly in recent days amid intense fighting, with doctors warning of a “catastrophic” situation for patients, staff and displaced people still inside. Wednesday’s raid sparked international criticism.

In a statement posted online, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had begun “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital.”

IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner told CNN later Wednesday that the operation at Al-Shifa hospital was “ongoing.” Israeli radio reported that, so far, the army had found no indication of hostages inside the hospital.

A senior Israeli defense official, speaking with journalists early afternoon Wednesday, said the IDF had no information that people inside the hospital had been interrogated, though the official acknowledged the operation was still ongoing at the time of the briefing.

Israeli soldiers, he said, were in the buildings “conducting search and interrogation operations with the young men amidst intense and violent gunfire inside the hospital.” He added that the Israeli army “is calling on the young men through megaphones to raise their hands, come out, and surrender themselves.”

Earlier, he said gunfire was exchanged across the hospital yard.

The Israeli military entered the ground floor and basement of the surgery building in Al-Shifa, Mohammad Zaqout, the director general of hospitals in Gaza, told Al Jazeera. Later, he said Israeli tanks had started leaving the complex.

In its statement Wednesday, Israel again accused Hamas of continuing to use the large hospital complex for military purposes which, it claimed, “jeopardizes the hospital’s protected status under international law.”

Hamas and hospital officials have consistently rejected Israel’s claims that Hamas has built a command center under the hospital. Human rights bodies fiercely condemned Israel’s raid on Al-Shifa, as the World Health Organization and Palestinian health officials warned they have lost communication with staff inside the hospital.

International pressure on the Israeli government has hardened in recent days amid accounts of dire circumstances at Gaza’s other fuel-starved hospitals, and severe shortages of food and water.

The United Nations’ Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said he was “appalled by report of military raids in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.”

“The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns. Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” Griffiths said on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned Israel’s “storming” of Al-Shifa, calling it “a violation of international humanitarian law.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday repeated his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza “in the name of humanity.”

30-minute warning

A doctor inside Al-Shifa told CNN they were given 30 minutes’ warning before the Israeli operation began.

“We were asked to stay clear of the windows and the balconies. We can hear the armored vehicles, they are very close to the entrance of the complex,” Dr. Khaled Abu Samra said.

Neonatal babies in Al-Shifa hospital are in “severe danger” as conditions deteriorate further, Gaza hospitals director general Zaqout said.

“On evacuating the hospital…we have said numerous times there is no place to move 40 incubators outside the hospital,” Zaqout said.

CNN could not independently confirm his assessment of the situation. But CNN previously reported on pictures released by Al-Shifa that showed newborn babies taken off failed incubators and wrapped in foil in a desperate bid to keep them alive after oxygen supplies ran out.

Hundreds of staff and patients are still inside Al-Shifa, according to the most recent reports from the hospital, along with several thousand who have sought shelter from Israel’s air and ground offensive.

The Israeli statement said, “The IDF is conducting a ground operation in Gaza to defeat Hamas and rescue our hostages. Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza.”

A statement from Hamas blamed both Israel and the United States for the Israeli army raid on the hospital. By supporting what it called Israel’s “false narrative” – that Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command and control base – it said the US had given Israel, “a green light … to commit more massacres against civilians.”

Hours before Israel’s raid, the White House and the Pentagon said Hamas is storing weapons and operating a command center from the hospital.

The Pentagon said the US has newly declassified intelligence that claims to show that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were using hospitals — including Al-Shifa — as a “way to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages.”

Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Mai Al-Kaila said the Israeli army raid represents, “a new crime against humanity, medical staff, and patients” and could have “catastrophic consequences” for patients and medical staff.

Israel declared war on Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, and launched a “complete siege” of the enclave following Hamas’ terror attacks in Israel on October 7. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ attacks, and about 240 taken hostage, most of whom remain captive in Gaza.

Since then, the Israeli response has killed at least 11,255 Palestinians – including 4,630 children – according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, which draws on medical sources in Gaza.

‘Screams of older people and cries of children’

People inside Al-Shifa have lost contact with other buildings in the complex, jeopardizing efforts by humanitarian workers and Palestinian officials to receive updated information about the catastrophic conditions faced by terrorized patients and medical staff.

Omar Zaqout, the supervisor of the ER department, said people were sheltering inside the buildings and staying away from windows and doors.

“We don’t know what is going on outside, all we’re hearing are explosions, gunfire, screams of older people and cries of children,” Zaqout added.

He said Israeli soldiers were present in buildings around the ER and that he had earlier witnessed people handcuffed, stripped from their clothes and blindfolded. CNN is not on the ground and cannot independently verify his account. CNN has also reached out to the IDF for comment on these allegations but has yet to hear back.

Zaqout, the director general of hospitals in Gaza, alleged the IDF interrogated medical teams, patients and their escorts.

“Some of the escorts were forced to take their clothes off,” said Zaqout, who is not at the hospital but spoke to the doctors inside.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari claimed Israeli forces “include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians.” CNN cannot verify Hagari’s claims.

For his part, Zaqout insisted that all the people inside the hospital are civilians. “The situation is currently horrific.”

Earlier this week, doctors and journalists described desperate efforts to keep premature babies alive and limited procedures taking place by candlelight, as food, milk and water runs out.

Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera there are plans to bury more than 150 bodies, but he was worried the grave would not be large enough. Khader Al Za’anoun, a reporter for the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, told CNN, “the smell of dead people is unbearable, most of the bodies are of women and children.”

In recent days, 15 patients have died at Al-Shifa, among them six newborns, due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from the Hamas-controlled territory.

Egyptian health minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said Tuesday they are working to bring 36 newborns from Al-Shifa to Egypt, though such a transfer would be dangerous.

The World Health Organization has recorded at least 137 attacks on health facilities in Gaza, which it said resulted in 521 deaths and 686 injuries.

Other protected sites, like schools, civilian shelters, and United Nations facilities have already been damaged or destroyed in over a month of Israeli airstrikes. On Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees announced that over 100 UN staffers had been killed in Gaza since fighting began – the most in the United Nation’s history.