18th March, 2024
The Israeli military on Monday urged Palestinians sheltering in Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the embattled coastal area, and its environs to leave.
They urged the sheltering persons to move away from conflict zone as Israeli troops are moving in once again.
“You should leave the area to the west immediately to ensure your safety and then … to the humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi.’’
The spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) wrote in Arabic on X, formerly Twitter.
He was referring to a town on the coast of the Gaza Strip in the far south.
The call was directed at everyone in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City as well as everyone inside the al-Shifa Hospital.
Eyewitnesses reported that flyers containing the message had been dropped over the area.
Earlier, the Israeli army said it was once again deploying troops in the al-Shifa hospital area, after an Israeli operation targeting the facility last year had sparked an international outcry.
A precise operation was being carried out in the area of the Shifa hospital, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a Telegram post in the early hours of Monday.
The IDF said that intelligence information indicated that senior members of Palestinian militant group Hamas were using the badly damaged hospital “to conduct and promote terrorist activity.’’
The IDF added that its troops had been instructed on the importance of operating cautiously, as well as on the measures to be taken to avoid to harming the patients.
Also civilians, medical staff, and medical equipment, before the operation started.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a brief statement that the operation followed “concrete intelligence that demanded immediate action.
“We know that senior Hamas terrorists have regrouped inside the Shifa hospital and are using it to command attacks against Israel,’’ Hagari added.
The military said it would continue to act in accordance with international law and against the Hamas terrorist organisation which operated from hospitals and civilian infrastructure in a systematic and cynical way.
The U.S. government had also supported the Israeli claim that Hamas had used the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip as a command centre and weapons depot.
The Israeli military first invaded the al-Shifa Hospital in mid-November in spite of massive international criticism.
The IDF said it found a Hamas tunnel complex there.
Israel launched the war in Gaza after Palestinian extremist organization Hamas led unprecedented attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, in which they killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
They also abducted some 240 hostages into the coastal area, more than 100 of whom were believed to be held there.
More than 31,700 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the beginning of the war more than five months ago, according to Gaza’s health authority, with many more said to be missing.
Around 73,800 others have been injured.
Israeli leaders have said that the goal of the military operations is to destroy Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since seizing power there in 2007.
Many Gazans were on the brink of famine, international experts warned again on Monday.
Famine is expected to break out in the north of the sealed-off coastal strip between mid-March and May, according to a new report published on Monday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
According to the experts, an increasing deterioration in the food situation in Gaza has been observed in recent months and around half of the population around 1.1 million people are affected by famine-like conditions.
The IPC initiative consists of many different UN organisations and international aid groups.
International observers and world leaders have increasingly been pressuring Israel to let more aid into Gaza, accusing the government of not doing enough.
Israel rejected the accusations. (dpa/NAN)