{"id":15454,"date":"2024-04-01T22:35:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T22:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/israeli-troops-pull-out-of-a-major-gaza-hospital-after-a-two-week-battle\/"},"modified":"2024-04-01T22:35:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T22:35:28","slug":"israeli-troops-pull-out-of-a-major-gaza-hospital-after-a-two-week-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/israeli-troops-pull-out-of-a-major-gaza-hospital-after-a-two-week-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli troops pull out of a major Gaza hospital after a two-week battle."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/01\/multimedia\/01mideast-crisis-shifa-wftz\/01mideast-crisis-shifa-wftz-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Israeli troops pull out of a major Gaza hospital after a two-week battle.\" title=\"Israeli troops pull out of a major Gaza hospital after a two-week battle.\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli soldiers withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after two weeks of fighting in which they killed around 200 Palestinians and arrested hundreds of others, the Israeli military said on Monday. The troops left widespread devastation in their wake after extended gun battles with Palestinian militants in and around the complex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Taysir al-Tanna, a longtime vascular surgeon at Al-Shifa, said many of the hospital\u2019s main buildings \u2014 including the emergency, obstetrics and surgical wards \u2014 had been badly damaged in the fighting, and the main gate had been smashed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cNow it looks like a wasteland,\u201d Dr. al-Tanna said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said bodies were scattered in and around the complex. The final death toll remained unclear, he said, as some corpses were either under the rubble of destroyed buildings or were believed to have been buried.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEven outside the complex itself, there are blocks of buildings that were knocked to the ground,\u201d and people were searching for the occupants in the rubble, Mr. Basal said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Israeli military said the roughly 200 Palestinians it killed were militants, and that its soldiers had arrested around 900 people it suspected of being militants at the Shifa complex over the past two weeks, including senior commanders in groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It said two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in the raid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, blamed the destruction on the militants, saying they had fortified themselves inside hospital wards, fired on soldiers and refused calls to surrender. \u201cWe had to fire on the buildings in order to stop that and to kill the terrorists,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli forces evacuated displaced civilians sheltering in the compound as well as some patients, and placed other patients in a building away from the fighting, Admiral Hagari said. The World Health Organization said on Sunday that at least 21 patients had died since the Israeli raid began in mid-March, though their causes of death were unclear. By this weekend, just 107 patients remained \u2014 30 of them bedridden \u2014 without drinking water and with only minimal medication, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli forces first raided Al-Shifa in November, maintaining that Hamas militants had built a command center in tunnels underneath it. Hamas and the hospital director insisted the facility was solely a refuge for civilians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Israeli military later publicized some evidence to support its case, including by showing reporters a fortified tunnel constructed underneath the hospital grounds. An <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/02\/12\/world\/middleeast\/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html\" title=\"\">investigation<\/a> by The New York Times suggested that Hamas had used the site for cover and stored weapons there. Critics argue that Israel failed to substantiate its original claims about Al-Shifa\u2019s military value.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After little more than a week, Israeli troops withdrew in compliance with a brief cease-fire. But as the war ground on, Israeli forces closed in on the hospital again in mid-March in an attempt to root out what they said was a renewed insurgency by Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHamas and Islamic Jihad have started to rebuild themselves in the north,\u201d said Admiral Hagari. \u201cAnd they re-based themselves inside Shifa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hamas has not commented on the new allegations that it was using the hospital as a base, but in a statement it accused the Israeli military of summarily executing Palestinians inside. The group\u2019s armed wing has repeatedly said that its militants were fighting with the Israeli military around Al-Shifa over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hamas called the destruction at the hospital \u201ca horrific crime\u201d that Israel had perpetrated \u201cwith full and unlimited support from the administration of U.S. President Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Before the first Israeli incursion, Israel gave the hospital more than a week\u2019s notice ahead of its forces entering the complex, giving militants hiding there an opportunity to flee, Admiral Hagari said. This time, Israeli soldiers launched a surprise attack, raiding the area in the middle of the night, he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a visit to Al-Shifa on Saturday, Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, declared the raid \u201cextremely successful.\u201d Lt. Gen. Halevi said the operation had let militant groups know that \u201ca hospital is not a safe place\u201d for them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Asked about the destruction at Al-Shifa, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the Biden administration was concerned over Hamas\u2019s repeated activity within hospitals, as well as \u201chow Hamas appears, how they appear to have been able to reconstitute in a hospital so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis just points to how challenging Israel\u2019s military operation is, because Hamas has intentionally embedded themselves into civilian infrastructure, into these hospitals,\u201d Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli soldiers withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after two weeks of fighting in which they killed around 200 Palestinians and arrested hundreds of others, the Israeli military said on Monday. The troops left widespread devastation in their wake after extended gun battles with Palestinian militants in and around the complex. Taysir al-Tanna, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/01\/multimedia\/01mideast-crisis-shifa-wftz\/01mideast-crisis-shifa-wftz-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3601,43,180,1178,846,2439,931,20985],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15456,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15454\/revisions\/15456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}