GAZA STRIP (Palestinian Territories): Israeli troops carried out building-bybuilding searches at Gaza’s main hospital, as a new communications blackout in the territory on Friday compounded fears for Palestinian civilians trapped inside the facility.
Al-Shifa hospital has become a focal point for Israeli operations in northern Gaza since soldiers raided the complex on Wednesday, hunting for a command centre they say militant group Hamas operates there.
Hamas and hospital managers deny that charge, and there has been international concern about several thousand people — including wounded patients and premature babies — believed to be trapped inside.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas in response to the group’s October 7 attack, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw about 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
Israel’s air bombardment and ground operation has killed 11,500 people, including thousands of children, according to Hamas-run local authorities in Gaza. Thick dark smoke rose over the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, an AFPTV live camera showed.
Israeli authorities have defended their operation, and the military said on Thursday it found rifles, ammunition, explosives and the entrance to a tunnel shaft at Al-Shifa. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged hostages may even have been held at the medical facility.
Allegations about the hospital have not been verified, and on Friday communications with the Gaza Strip were severed once again. Network provider Paltel group said all telecommunications were down because “all energy sources sustaining the network have been depleted, and fuel was not allowed in”.
The UN warned that the blackout would compound the misery of civilians, complicating efforts to distribute aid and possibly triggering looting of its supplies.
Israel said its forces were searching Al-Shifa “one building at a time”, and the army announced on Friday that troops had recovered the remains of kidnapped woman soldier Noa Marciano, 19, “from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital”.
The army had confirmed earlier in the week the death of Marciano, without giving the cause.
Hamas said she had been killed in an Israeli bombardment.
On Thursday the army said soldiers near Al-Shifa had found the body of another hostage. Israel’s ground operation has so far focused on the north of the Gaza Strip, where it has announced the seizure of the parliament building, government offices, Hamas police headquarters and a key port.
It says 51 of its troops have been killed in the fighting. Hospitals have become a particular target, with Israel saying it has found tunnels or military equipment at the Al-Shifa, Rantisi and Al-Quds facilities.
Palestinian health officials said on Thursday that the Al-Ahli hospital was under attack, with the Palestinian Red Crescent saying medical staff were unable to reach casualties in the courtyard because of explosions and gunfire.
More than half of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functional, due to either combat, damage, or shortages, and Israel’s raid on Al-Shifa left extensive damage to the radiology, burns and dialysis unit, the Hamas-run health ministry said. – AFP
