By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and TIA GOLDENBERG (Associated Press)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital early Monday after a two-week raid, in which it said it killed some 200 fighters and detained hundreds more. Palestinian residents said the troops left behind several bodies and a vast swath of destruction.
The military has described the raid on Shifa Hospital as a major battlefield victory in the nearly six-month war. But it came at a time of mounting frustration in Israel, with tens of thousands protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and demanding he do more to bring home dozens of hostages held in Gaza. It was the largest anti-government demonstration since the start of the war.
The fighting showed that Hamas can still put up resistance even in one of the hardest-hit areas. Israel said it had largely dismantled Hamas in northern Gaza and withdrew thousands of troops late last year, leaving a security vacuum that has made it difficult to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
A second shipment of food aid arrived by sea on Monday in the latest test of a new maritime route from the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. One of the three boats could be seen off the coast, and Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said they had received permission to offload. The precise mechanism of delivery was not yet clear.
The military said that among those killed at Shifa were senior Hamas operatives and other militants who had regrouped there after an earlier raid in November, and that it seized weapons and valuable intelligence.
The U.N. health agency said more than 20 patients died and dozens were put at risk during the raid, which brought even further destruction to a hospital that had already largely ceased to function.
Bassel al-Hilou said the bodies of seven of his relatives had been found in the wreckage surrounding the hospital. He said they had sought shelter at a neighbor’s house after theirs was bombed, but then another strike hit the home where they were staying.
“There was a massacre in my uncle’s house,” he told The Associated Press. “The situation was indescribable.”
It was not yet known how many Palestinian civilians were killed during the raid. The military denied that its forces harmed any civilians inside the compound.
Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and has raided several medical facilities. Health officials in Gaza deny those allegations. Critics accuse the army of recklessly endangering civilians and of decimating a health sector already overwhelmed with war-wounded. Palestinians say Israeli troops forced hundreds of people living near Shifa to evacuate to the south.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group had established their main northern headquarters inside the hospital. He described days of close-quarters fighting and blamed Hamas for the destruction, saying some fighters had barricaded themselves inside hospital wards while others launched mortar rounds at the compound.
Hagari stated that the soldiers had taken into custody about 900 suspected fighters during the attack, including more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and confiscated over $3 million in various currencies, along with weapons.
He mentioned that the military moved more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients and provided food, water, and medical supplies to the rest. Two Israeli soldiers and roughly 200 fighters were killed in the attack, as per the military.
Mohammed Mahdi, who was among hundreds of Palestinians who returned to the area, described a scene of “complete destruction.” He observed that several buildings had been set on fire and he had seen six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard. It was unclear if the bodies around the hospital were the remains of people killed in the raid or those who had died earlier in the war.
Another resident, Yahia Abu Auf, mentioned that army bulldozers had destroyed a makeshift cemetery in Shifa’s courtyard.
Footage shared online showed severely damaged and burnt buildings, piles of dirt that had been stirred up by bulldozers, and patients on stretchers in dim corridors.
At least 21 patients have passed away since the raid started, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted late Sunday on X, previously known as Twitter.
He stated that more than a hundred patients were still within the compound, including four children and 28 critical patients. He also noted the absence of diapers, urine bags, or water for cleaning wounds, and mentioned that many patients suffered from infected wounds and dehydration.
The military had previously stormed Shifa in November, claiming that Hamas had a complex command and control center inside and beneath the compound. It uncovered a tunnel running below the hospital that led to a few rooms, as well as weapons it claimed to have confiscated from within medical buildings, but nothing on the scale of what it had alleged prior to that raid.
The conflict started on Oct. 7, with Hamas-led terrorists entering southern Israel, resulting in about 1,200 deaths, mostly civilians, and around 250 hostages.
Israel reacted with an air, land, and sea offensive that has caused the deaths of at least 32,845 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but states that women and children have made up about two-thirds of those killed.
The Israeli military claims to have killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence, and blames the civilian death toll on Palestinian fighters as they fight in densely populated areas.
The conflict has displaced most of the population of the territory and pushed a third of its residents to the edge of famine. Northern Gaza, where Shifa is situated, has experienced extensive destruction and has been largely cut off since October, leading to widespread hunger.
The aid ships that arrived on Monday are transporting about 400 tons of food and supplies in a delivery organized by the United Arab Emirates and the World Central Kitchen, the charity established by celebrity chef José Andrés. Last month a ship delivered 200 tons of aid in a test run.
Even though Israel has shifted its focus to other parts of Gaza this year, its soldiers have fought against fighters in the north several times, and the two weeks of intense fighting around Shifa demonstrated the enduring strength of the armed groups.
Netanyahu has promised to continue the attack until Hamas is destroyed and all the captives are released. He says Israel will soon extend ground operations to the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population — have taken shelter.
But he is confronting increasing pressure from Israelis who hold him responsible for the security lapses of Oct. 7 and from some families of the captives who blame him for the failure to reach an agreement despite several weeks of negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt. Allied countries, including main supporter the United States, have advised him against an invasion of Rafah.
Hamas and other militants are still thought to be holding around 100 captives and the remains of 30 others, after releasing most of the others during a cease-fire last November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
