Why Israel is attacking Al Shifa Hospital again, the largest in Gaza

Since Monday morning, Israel performs a new operation on the Al-Shifa Hospitalthe biggest of Link operating at minimum capacity. The war action takes place on the same day that the UN food agency warned that “famine is imminent” in the north of the Palestinian enclave, where the majority of the population does not have access to food.

To the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that the militant group Hamas had regrouped in Al-Shifa Hospital and that Israeli forces fired from inside the compound.

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The IDF also They denounced the presence of prominent Hamas members at the hospital.

At the beginning of the operation, the army Israel ordered all people living near the Al Shifa Medical Complexon the neighborhood For Rimal from Gaza City, to evacuate south.

Displaced Palestinians fleeing the area near al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City walk along the road on March 18, 2024. (AFP photo). (-/)

According to Palestinian authorities, in Al-Shifa Hospital There remain thousands of civilians who sought refuge in the complex to escape the war.

In a first assessment, the IDF reported in a statement that Hamas’ head of internal security Faiq Mabhouchwas killed in the operation Al-Shifa Hospital.

Israel guaranteed that Faiq Mabhouch was responsible for synchronizing operations Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in addition to other functions.

????Eliminated: Faiq Mabhouh, head of the Hamas Internal Security Operations Directorate.

Mabhouh was hiding in a hospital complex in Shifa, where he operated and promoted terrorist activities. pic.twitter.com/NFwOFyACeU

– IDE (@FDOnline) March 18, 2024

The declaration of the FDI said it Mabhouch He was found armed and hiding inside the hospital, and many weapons were found in the room next to him, as well as money.

However, the EFE agency indicated that Palestinian sources told it that Mabhouch He was a police officer in charge of watching the aid trucks arriving in the city of Link until its contents were unloaded into warehouses in United Nations Near East Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA).

The AFP agency confirmed that Faiq Mabhouch He was a high commander of the Gaza Police and brother of Mahmoud Al Mabhouhone of the founders of the armed wing of the Hamas who was murdered in 2010 in Dubai.

The IDF later reported that another “20 terrorists have been eliminated” and that dozens have been detained and are being interrogated.

In the exchange of fire between Israeli troops and militiamen in the hospital area, the sergeant died Matan Vinogradov20, from the Nahal Brigade, bringing to 250 the number of casualties in the Israeli ranks since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza.

According to some residents contacted by the AFP agency, “more than 45 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles” entered Al Rimal at dawn, the neighborhood where Al-Shifa Hospital.

The location of Al Shifa Hospital. (AFP).

Additionally, snipers provided cover for forces entering the building.

He Gaza Ministry of Healthcontrolled by Hamas, reported that the Israeli army was firing its weapons and missiles at a building used for specialized surgeries. Furthermore, a fire broke out at the hospital door.

The ministry added that around 30 thousand people take refuge in Al-Shifa Hospitalincluding patients, medical staff and people who fled their homes in search of safety.

A young Palestinian man injured in an Israeli bombing lies on the ground as he waits for medical attention at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, March 15, 2024. (AFP Photo). (-/)

“We are trapped inside” Abdel-Hady Sayed, who had been sheltering at the hospital for about three months, told the AP agency. “They shoot at everything that moves (…) doctors and ambulances can’t move.”

Hamada Abdelhadi, a Palestinian displaced in Al-Shifatold CNN that Israeli military vehicles and excavators are “demolishing and excavating the outer edges of hospital courtyards.”

“Military vehicles are firing at the windows of the hospital buildings and at anyone caught moving between the corridors,” Abdelhadi said.

“We have been ordered to remain inside the hospital until further notice,” he added. He said most of those hospitalized are displaced and injured, and are women and children.

“The screams of women and children did not stop. With every artillery shell fired, there is more screaming,” he said. “There are no words to describe the fear they feel right now.”He continued.

In turn, the television channel Al Jazeera reported that Israeli security forces arrested their Arab correspondent Ismail al Ghoul at the Al-Shifa Hospital.

“The occupation army severely beat #AlJazeera correspondent Ismail al Ghoul before detaining him inside the Al Shifa medical complex in Gaza,” he said. Al Jazeera on social network X.

A source of Al Jazeera told AFP that five other people were detained, including Al Ghoul’s recording team and technicians.

Al Ghoul and his team were taken to an unidentified location, Al Jazeera said. The channel’s satellite transmission vehicles and cameras were destroyed.

This photograph released by the Israeli military on November 15, 2023 shows Israeli soldiers carrying out operations inside Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City. (AFP). (-/)

This is the fourth operation that Israel carry forward in Al-Shifa Hospital since the war began on October 7th.

The last time was in Novemberwhen the Israeli army reported that under the hospital there was an elaborate Hamas command center.

In the middle of the operation, the Israeli army stated that found a tunnel leading to a bunker and found weapons.

But no evidence was ever demonstrated that the large command center he described had been found. Israel Previously, critics of the war accused the army of recklessly endangering the lives of civilians treated or sheltered in the hospital.

Children sit with empty pots as displaced Palestinians line up to receive food provided by a charity in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, March 16, 2024. (Photo by SAID KHATIB/AFP). (Said Khatib/)

This Monday, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) asked Israel to allow immediate access to Linkwhere famine is imminent in order to provide urgent and critical assistance on a large scale.

“More than half of the population, around 1.11 million people, suffer from catastrophic food insecurity,” said FAO.

“Famine is expected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in northern provinces, according to a new report published today by the global Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative,” FAO explained in a statement reviewed by the EFE agency. .

“People are starving now. The speed with which this crisis of man-made hunger and malnutrition has spread Link is terrifying,” said WFP director Cindy McCain, who demanded “immediate and complete access to the north” because “If we wait until famine is declared, it will be too late. Thousands more will die.”

The rest of Gaza “is also at risk of future famine, in the worst-case scenario, if hostilities do not cease and large-scale humanitarian assistance does not reach those most in need,” the FAO explained.

“This updated IPC analysis validates what we all feared: a deepening and rapid deterioration of the food security situation in Gaza. “Half the population faces catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” said Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director General.

It is “the highest level ever recorded, unlike anything we have seen before,” he added.

According to the latest IPC data, practically all households skip meals every day and adults reduce meals so that children can eat.

In some areas, in almost two thirds of homes, people went days and nights without eating at least 10 times in the last 30 days, according to EFE.

Source: Elcomercio