Israeli airstrikes hit three hospitals and a school in Gaza yesterday, killing at least 22 people, according to Palestinian officials.
Tanks surrounded hospitals as the battle against Hamas moved into the heart of its stronghold in Gaza City.
Officials in the Hamas-led government said rockets were fired into the courtyard of Gaza’s main hospital, Al-Shifa, in the early hours, followed by further attacks later.
Director of Al-Shifa Hospital Mohammad Abu Selmeyah said that “Israeli tanks fired at Al-Shifa Hospital,” while the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Israeli attacks were also blamed for damaging the Indonesian hospital and setting fire to the Nasser Rantissi children’s cancer hospital. There were reports that water and electricity supplies had been cut off.
The hospitals are in northern Gaza, where Israel says the Hamas militants who attacked the country last month are concentrated, and are full of displaced people, patients and doctors.
Israel says Hamas uses them as human shields and that there are large command centers under some buildings.
Officials in the Hamas-led government said rockets were fired into the courtyard of Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, in the early hours, with further attacks later.
Palestinian girl Orheen Al-Dayah, who was wounded in the forehead during an Israeli attack amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, is helped after her wounds were stitched without anesthesia at Al Shifa Hospital
Israeli tanks, which have been advancing through northern Gaza for almost two weeks, took up positions last night around the Nasser Rantissi, Children and Eye Hospitals and Al-Quds Hospital, medical staff said.
Military experts believe that Israeli tank forces in Gaza are now the largest since the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel took over the territory from Egypt.
“Israel is now launching a war against hospitals in Gaza City,” Selmeyah said.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said Israel had bombed Al-Shifa hospital buildings five times. “One Palestinian was killed and several were injured in the early morning attack,” he said by telephone.
Graphic videos circulating on social media yesterday appeared to show scenes of panic and people covered in blood.
Mr. Selmeyah later said that at least 20 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza City’s Al-Buraq school, where residents whose homes had been destroyed sought shelter.
The Palestinian Red Cross said Israeli snipers fired on Al-Quds hospital and violent clashes occurred, killing one person and wounding 28, most of them children.
“Intense clashes now and (Israeli) occupation snipers are firing on Al-Quds Hospital, causing casualties among displaced Palestinians sheltering in the facility,” the medical organization said.
The Mail’s Nick Craven, who joined IDF soldiers who found at least 17 underground fortifications
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the reports. It says it is not targeting civilians and trying to protect them, but that Hamas militants have hidden command centers and tunnels beneath Al-Shifa and other hospitals.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said: “While the world sees neighborhoods with schools, hospitals, scout groups, children’s playgrounds and mosques, Hamas sees an opportunity to exploit them.”
Hamas denies the claim.
A video from Al-Shifa’s courtyard recorded the sound of incoming fire waking people in makeshift shelters, followed by screams for an ambulance. In the blood-spattered courtyard, a man writhed on the ground screaming, his leg apparently severed. The IDF has said it “cannot discuss potential locations related to our operations” because doing so “could endanger troops.”
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in retaliation after Hamas fighters crossed the border on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 hostages. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and retaliated with an aerial bombardment and a ground campaign that, according to the Health Ministry, killed more than 11,000 people in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, mostly civilians and many of them children.
Last night there were unconfirmed reports of a hostage swap deal between Israel and Hamas, but the Israeli government declined to comment. The Saudi newspaper Al-Arabiya claimed that a deal had been struck to release female Palestinian prisoners and children held in Israeli prisons in exchange for 100 women and children of the approximately 240 hostages Hamas was holding in Gaza.
The claim, which drew “no comment” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, raised cautious hopes for the return of some of the hostages captured from Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
Israelis were shocked to see two of the hostages, a 77-year-old woman and a 13-year-old boy, paraded in front of video cameras Thursday by their captors, Islamic Jihad, terrorist allies of Hamas.
Even more shocking were the contrasting photos published of the young boy, Yagel Yaacov, showing his dramatic decline over the past month, presumably because he had not seen daylight, as the hostages are believed to be held in the ‘Gaza Metro’ , according to the Hamas tunnel system. extend 300 miles beneath Gaza.
In the earlier photo, the boy is smiling and looking lively, but as a prisoner, his pale skin and the dark circles under his eyes tell a very different story.