On 18th November (Saturday), the Israel Defence Forces denied reports that it had given orders to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital to evacuate patients and staff within an hour. It added that it only responded to requests made by the director of Shifa Hospital who asked them for a safe route out for patients and staff who wished to leave the building. Earlier the hospital director said that Israeli troops instructed him to evacuate patients and staff, prompting thousands of people to flea.
In a statement, the IDF said, “This morning, the IDF acceded to the request of the director of Shifa Hospital to enable additional Gazans who were in the hospital, and would like to evacuate, to do so via the secure route.”
It categorically asserted, “At no point did the IDF order the evacuation of patients or medical teams and in fact proposed that any request for medical evacuation will be facilitated by the IDF.”
“Medical personnel will remain in the hospital to support patients who are unable to evacuate,” the IDF added. According to the IDF, it provided additional food, water, and humanitarian aid to Shifa Hospital overnight.
It is important to note that earlier news agency AFP reported that the IDF troops had ordered the evacuation of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza “in the next hour” over loudspeakers. According to the hospital’s director, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, he was instructed to ensure “the evacuation of patients, wounded, the displaced and medical staff, and that they should move on foot towards the seafront.”
Nonetheless, the purported orders by the IDF prompted thousands of Gazans lodged inside Al-Shifa Hospital to flee from the building and move Southwards. According to an estimate by the United Nations, around 2,300 patients, staff, and displaced Palestinians were sheltered inside the Al-Shifa facility.
As per the news agency AFP citing Gazan Health officials, hundreds of Gazans left Al-Shifa after reports claimed that Israel’s army gave the purported order to evacuate Gaza’s main hospital- Al-Shifa. Around 450 patients were left behind at the Al-Shifa Hospital.
During the course of the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza City’s biggest medical centre Al-Shifa Hospital has been the focus of fighting for several weeks as the IDF has been asserting that the Hamas terror organisation operates a command center and labyrinth of tunnels underneath the hospital and making documentary revelations regarding the same.
Amid claims and counter-claims of evacuation orders for Al-Shifa Hospital, Israel has made repeated calls for the hospital to be evacuated to the south while the Gazan authority had maintained that many of the patients cannot be moved.
Additionally, yesterday, the IDF released new images that showed a tunnel shaft found in the hospital complex.
Apart from making revelations about Shifa Hospital, the military has said it recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on 7th October from the area of Shifa Hospital. Evidently, on Thursday evening (16th November), the IDF troops located the body of Yehudit Weiss in a building near the medical centre’s compound.
Later on Friday morning, the IDF announced that it had recovered the body of Cpl. Noa Marciano a day earlier from another building adjacent to Shifa. It came three days after announcing that she had been killed in Hamas captivity.
“We see clear Hamas presence in all hospitals”: IDF official
Meanwhile, on Friday (17th November), Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of the IDF Southern Command asserted that Palestinian terror group Hamas has a “clear presence” in all Gaza hospitals.
While carrying out an assessment at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Finkelman told troops, “We see the presence of Hamas in all hospitals, it is a clear presence. They make cynical use of the hospitals, like here in the heart of Shifa.”
At the hospital, Israeli forces discovered an entry point to a Hamas tunnel and a stockpile of weapons, along with other findings in the preceding days.
While briefing media on Friday, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that troops found additional underground infrastructure at Shifa. He added that troops are still searching the complex for information on the hostages.
His announcement came around 48 hours after the IDF launched a raid on Al-Shifa Hospital.
Consipicoulously, Israeli forces have been sharing evidence stressing that the Palestinian terror outfit Hamas has been using ordinary Gazans as human shields and using buildings like schools, mosques, and Hospitals to hide its terror infrastructure.
Sharing more updates on the same, the IDF released footage of the elite Duvdevan unit operating in the Gaza Strip. It said that the forces have raided several sites used by Hamas, killing operatives in the process.
As per the IDF, the Duvdevan forces found weapons and Hamas military equipment during a raid on a high school in Gaza. Further, the troops also raided the home of a Hamas field commander, finding weapons and Hamas instructional booklets.
Israel Hamas war
It is important to note that on 7th October thousands of Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel killing more than 1,200, killing babies, raping women, maiming thousands, and taking more than 250 Israeli and foreign nationals as hostages to Gaza. The scale of brutality was the largest in the Independent history of the Jewish nation.
In its retaliation, Israel has been carrying out ground operations in Northern Gaza in what it has called an operation to “dismantle” the terror infrastructure of Hamas in the Palestinian enclave. The ground operation was followed after nearly three weeks of aerial bombardment of the Palestinian enclave and Israel has asserted that Hamas has lost operational control of Northern Gaza.