Local authorities say more than 400 Palestinians have lost their lives during the Israeli military’s raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital where a siege has entered its 13th day.
Gaza’s media office announced in a statement that Israeli forces have perpetrated various crimes during the ongoing attack on the hospital, the largest medical facility in the territory that houses thousands of patients and displaced people. The troops have targeted, destroyed and set fire to 1,050 houses.
The statement added that the fatalities include patients, war-displaced and healthcare staff, noting that hundreds more have been arrested and subjected to torture.
Gaza’s media office went on to lambaste the silence of the international community on such atrocities, condemning the US administration and certain world countries’ complicity with the Israeli regime in the bloody military campaign against the besieged coastal sliver.
Medical staff in other hospitals in the war-torn Gaza Strip are also contending with Israeli brutalities as the war rages on.
Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalia in northern Gaza, stated that medical staff at the facility are working under deplorable conditions.
On March 18, heavily armed Israeli forces stormed the al-Shifa Hospital using tanks and drones, firing at people inside the complex.
The Israeli military claimed that the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement is using the facility to “conduct and promote terrorist activity.” Later that day, Israel said that “terrorist forces” were firing at Israeli troops.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said at the time that about 3,000 people were inside the medical complex seeking refuge and that those attempting to leave were being targeted by snipers and fire from helicopters.
The deadly raid has been going on for nearly two weeks now, with the occupation troops laying siege on the hospital and targeting those trying to flee.
Israel has killed 26 members of Palestine Red Crescent
Meanwhile, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that Israeli forces had killed 26 members of its team since the start of the war on Gaza.
The group said some 15 of its staff were killed “while performing their humanitarian duties and wearing the protected Red Crescent emblem.”
Israel has been targeting hospitals in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of its war on Gaza in early October last year, claiming Hamas uses them as command centers. Hamas officials have rejected such claims on several occasions.
Israel waged its brutal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
However, more than six months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives of “destroying Hamas” and finding Israeli captives despite killing at least 32,705 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 75,190 others.
