Israeli forces launched a raid Wednesday on Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, after accusing Hamas of operating from tunnels beneath the vast complex – a claim denied by the militant group and hospital officials.
Thousands of Palestinians are believed to be sheltering in and around the hospital, which the UN said had become the “epicenter” of fighting in the area, trapping vulnerable patients, staff and displaced Palestinians as they run out of medical supplies and fuel.
The hospital’s main building has effectively ceased functioning, with doctors working by candlelight and wrapping premature babies in foil to keep them alive – with some warning the situation inside has become “catastrophic.”
The hospital had become a microcosm of the wider war and the rhetoric around it. Palestinians hold up the fighting around Al-Shifa as proof of Israel’s wanton disregard for civilian life in Gaza, while Israel points to the hospital as an example of Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields.
But the decision by Israeli forces to enter the hospital marks a potential escalatory moment in the conflict which began on October 7, when Hamas militants entered Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking over 200 others hostage – the largest such attack on Israel since the country’s founding in 1948.
Retaliatory Israeli strikes have killed at least 11,470 people in Gaza, including 4,707 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws figures from the Hamas-controlled territory.
