Israeli army launches new raid at Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital

Number of civilians killed and wounded, authorities say as fire erupts at the gate of the facility

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Israel launched an operation on Monday around Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility located in the north of the Gaza Strip, as air strikes heavily damaged the neighbourhood around it.

Military operations were previously carried out at Al Shifa in November, sparking an international outcry when Israeli soldiers besieged and then raided the complex despite the presence of thousands of patients and health workers.

The army is “currently conducting a precise operation in the area of the Shifa hospital”, the military said.

It added that “the operation is based on intelligence information indicating the use of the hospital by senior Hamas terrorists”.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that “a number of martyrs and wounded have fallen so far” since the morning.

The government media office in Gaza condemned the operation, saying that “the storming of the Al Shifa medical complex with tanks, drones and weapons, and shooting inside it, is a war crime”.

It said that about 30,000 displaced and wounded people and medical teams are still besieged inside the building.

Fire has erupted at the gate of the hospital and there were cases of suffocation among displaced women and children at the facility while communications were cut off, the Gaza government media office said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the war have sought shelter in the complex, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of running military operations from hospitals and other medical centres, claims the militant group denies. Tanks surrounded the hospital site, witnesses in Gaza city told AFP.

In addition to the raids at Al Shifa, the Israeli army has carried out several operations on medical facilities around the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.

The war on the Gaza Strip started after Hamas launched a deadly attack into southern Israel on October 7, prompting massive Israeli retribution.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment and ground offensive that the ministry says has killed at least 31,645 people, most of them women and children.