Occupation raids Shifa medical complex, pushes dozens more families to Gaza’s south

Occupation forces launched another raid on the Shifa Medical Complex at dawn on Monday with airstrikes on the hospital sending billows of smoke into the skyline over Gaza City, and people fleeing the site of refuge from the ongoing aggression.

A major fire broke out at the entrance to the largest medical facility in the strip, causing cases of asphyxiation among the 30,000 displaced Palestinians who have taken shelter at the hospital’s grounds and buildings according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

At least 80 people were arrested in today’s attack, including an Al Jazeera correspondent, and dozens were forced to leave areas in the vicinity of the hospital as Occupation forces issued more evacuation orders instructing them to move further south.

The attack is the latest to target Gaza’s health system, targeting not only medics and patients but also the thousands of people who have been forcibly displaced by more than five months of Israel’s consistent aggression. 

Israeli forces launched the assault in the early hours of Monday morning by imposing a complete siege around the area, as reported by Palestinian news outlets.

The incursion led to dozens of deaths and injuries among displaced and refuge-seeking Palestinians, according to the Palestinian News and Information Agency, Wafa.

Israeli forces stormed specialized surgery wards and the emergency reception building and fired directly at anyone moving, the Palestinian ministry said. Intense gunfire prevented medical staff from retrieving the injured, as anyone approaching a window was targeted. 

Israel claimed it was conducting a “high precision operation in limited areas of Shifa hospital,” citing “concrete intelligence” that indicates “senior Hamas terrorists” regrouped inside the facility, according to a statement published by the IDF.

The facility was victim to a similar raid in November which followed a three-day siege of the area. At the time, the IDF claimed to have “concrete” evidence that Hamas was operating out of tunnels beneath the hospital. No evidence has been found to corroborate the IDF’s November claims.

Hours after Monday’s attack on Shifa, the Israeli military called on all residents and displaced individuals in Rimal and other areas surrounding the medical complex to evacuate southward toward  the Mawasi “humanitarian zone” on the coast of southern Gaza.

Thousands of leaflets were air dropped by the Occupation, according to a journalist in Gaza city who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. The leaflets warned recipients that they were in a “dangerous combat zone.”

Al Jazeera also reported that Occupation arrested all of the men who were displaced following a raid on the American International School southwest of the Shifa hospital, while directing the women to leave for Deir al-Balah through Rashid street.

Thousands of people were pushed by the raid to Deir al-Balah and Mawasi, crowding the already packed area of the strip where a severe scarcity of essential items is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis that is already of catastrophic proportions.

While only 500,000 people are thought to remain in northern Gaza, where Shifa is located, those still in Gaza City and the rest of the north have suffered extreme conditions, with aid deliveries rare and crowds trying to obtain aid being targeted by Israeli gunfire on multiple occasions, dubbed the “flour massacres”.

Safe passage for people to return from the crowded south to areas in the north remains one of Hamas’s key demands in the truce negotiations currently taking place in Doha.