Maxar satellite image of al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Maxa Technologies | Getty Images
Israeli troops have withdrawn from Gaza City’s Shifa hospital after two weeks of operations, leaving behind a wasteland of destroyed buildings and Palestinian bodies scattered among the hospital’s dirt, the military said on Monday.
Hundreds of residents rushed to the area around Gaza’s largest hospital to inspect damage to surrounding neighborhoods following fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group that runs Gaza.
The Israeli military said it killed and detained hundreds of gunmen in clashes in the hospital area and seized weapons and intelligence documents. Hamas and medical staff deny any armed presence of Palestinian militants inside the hospital.
A spokesman for Gaza’s civilian emergency services said Israeli forces executed two people whose handcuffed bodies were found in the complex and used bulldozers to dig up the ground at the complex and unearth the buried bodies.
Reuters could not confirm the accusations of executions, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Footage circulating on social media but not confirmed by Reuters showed Palestinian bodies, some covered with filthy blankets, strewn on the ground around the charred remains of the hospital building, many of which have missing facades.
It showed the ground had been heavily plowed and many buildings outside the facility had either been leveled or burned.
Turkey’s opposition claimed a major victory in local elections across the country on Sunday.
“I have been crying since I arrived here, what the occupiers are committing here,” Samir Basel, 43, told Reuters via a chat app during a visit to Al Shifa. A horrific massacre.”
Basel said: “The place was devastated, the buildings burned and destroyed. The place needs to be rebuilt – there is no more Shifa Hospital.”
Israel said the operation in Shifa “while preventing harm to civilians, patients and medical teams”.
About The Author
