Spokesmen for the Israel Protection Forces introduced a handful of overseas journalists into the compound Sunday afternoon, simply hours earlier than the final particular forces troops withdrew. A reporter and photographer from The Washington Submit have been there.
The IDF provided a slim view — a pinhole, actually — however what we noticed was destruction on a large scale. Navy censors didn’t evaluation our phrases or pictures.
It’s exhausting to overstate the significance of al-Shifa, the place the dueling narratives of this conflict have converged.
The hospital has served as a beacon of refuge and resilience for Palestinians. The Israelis described it as a mustering level and command heart for terrorists who used the medical doctors and sufferers as human shields.
The workers who’ve toiled at al-Shifa mentioned they simply wished to take care of the sick and wounded. “We’re medical doctors: Our job is to deal with individuals. We’ve got nothing to do with this,” mentioned Amr Fawzi Jedbah, a 31-year-old vascular surgeon, who spoke to The Submit within the early days of the raid.
As we emerged from the windowless armored personnel carriers that introduced us to the location, the primary view was sand, and, for a second, there was silence. Gaza Metropolis, extra rubble now than metropolis, was quiet.
Then we heard small-arms hearth.
The compound smelled of our bodies. And decay. Every little thing that could possibly be damaged, smashed or twisted was, after 14 days of preventing. Dozens of fighters had been killed, the IDF mentioned, however mentioned it couldn’t present a exact rely. Some desperately sick sufferers had been evacuated; others, support teams mentioned, died in the course of the siege.
Earlier than this second offensive in opposition to al-Shifa, the hospital was nonetheless functioning, if simply barely, after a first raid by Israel troopers in November. When the March assault started two weeks in the past, there have been 6,000 individuals sheltering on the grounds, in keeping with the IDF — sufferers, medical workers and displaced households.
On Sunday, we didn’t see a single Palestinian.
Within the central quad, there have been new sand dunes formed by bulldozers. Israeli armor and personnel carriers encircled the complicated; troops moved shortly from spot to identify.
We have been instructed that Palestinian snipers remained within the space and {that a} handful of Hamas operatives would possibly nonetheless be transferring across the hospital buildings, based mostly on night-vision sweeps of the compound.
We noticed solely Israeli troopers. In a single darkened room, a platoon of commandos slept on the ground beside hallways strewn with trash.
There have been sporadic bursts of automated rifle hearth within the distance and what we guessed have been heavier rounds being fired. It was unclear who was taking pictures, or at what.
The Israeli particular forces described close-quarter fight with determined fighters from Hamas who had been taken abruptly and barricaded themselves in emptied hospital wards, together with elevator shafts and working rooms.
The Israelis mentioned two Palestinian militants, in confrontations, used grenades to kill themselves in what can be the primary reported suicide bombings of this newest Gaza conflict. This might not be confirmed.
We have been hustled right into a mid-rise medical workplace constructing seized by Israeli Navy SEALs, our masked escorts who guided us to the highest flooring to see the destruction beneath.
All the essential buildings of al-Shifa have been blasted and blackened, partitions lacking, shards of cement flooring pulling in opposition to twisted rebar.
These buildings weren’t pancaked by huge bombs, however focused by Israel’s air power strikes, artillery hearth and small arms. The constructing that housed the Israeli commandos was additionally was pocked by bullet holes and shattered glass.
What the Israeli navy described on the outset as a “exact operation” seemed extra like all-out city warfare.
We weren’t given entry to the final 140 Palestinians — workers and sufferers — that the IDF mentioned have been sheltering in a close-by constructing, ready to be evacuated. The remainder of the civilians had already been despatched to different medical amenities, the navy mentioned, or have been instructed to move south.
“There was no medical care or consuming water or meals” for the primary three days of the raid, in keeping with Mohamed al-Sikafi, 18, who texted with The Submit final Tuesday after making it out of al-Shifa to a close-by hospital, one of many few nonetheless functioning within the north. “There are a lot of sufferers whose well being circumstances declined.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director basic of the World Well being Group, wrote on X late Sunday that 21 sufferers had died at al-Shifa “for the reason that hospital got here beneath siege.” The IDF mentioned no medical workers or sufferers died as a “direct end result” of the Israeli raid, including that some might have died of “pure causes.”
Reporters have been led to an unlit room for a briefing by a prime officer within the navy particular operations unit referred to as Flotilla 13, one probably the most secretive within the Israeli forces, well-known for the reason that founding of the Jewish state.
Col. “E” — we weren’t allowed to call him or {photograph} his face — described his mission: Kill or seize Hamas fighters and spare the innocents.
The colonel mentioned that after the Israeli forces left the hospital after the primary raid in November, Hamas fighters streamed again into the complicated to take up arms, search shelter and blend with civilians.
“They go the place they know,” the colonel mentioned, suggesting that in bombed-out Gaza Metropolis, the al-Shifa complicated provided shelter, meals, water, electrical energy and web service.
Earlier within the conflict, the IDF made a lot of the tunnels they discovered on the hospital grounds. They described an enormous underground command and management heart, a digital metropolis. However definitive proof was missing. There have been clearly tunnels. However the place was Hamas?
Because it seems, the Israeli commando colonel pressured that the tunnel system might not have been as necessary as they as soon as thought. As a substitute, the colonel mentioned, the Hamas operatives in latest months have been working above floor, inside places of work and wards. The IDF confirmed photos of what they mentioned have been money, rifles, RPGs, grenades, mortars and a few Hamas paperwork discovered on-site.
Basem Naim, a Hamas official, denied Sunday that militants have been utilizing the hospital as a staging floor, telling The Submit it was “propaganda to justify the assault on our individuals.”
“Even when some Hamas members have been current within the hospital as refugees,” he continued, “does this justify destroying hospitals?”
Medical workers said repeatedly that the complicated was not used for navy functions. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British Palestinian physician who spent a number of weeks tending to the wounded at al-Shifa final 12 months, mentioned Monday that his buddy and colleague Ahmad Maqadmeh, “a stupendous soul and an amazing surgeon,” was among the many useless.
“He refused to depart the north and saved sending me pictures of his surgical procedures,” Abu Sitta wrote on Instagram. “He leaves behind a spouse and child.”
The Israeli colonel — and the IDF spokesman — each repeated that the al-Shifa offensive represented “successful and a tragedy.”
“It’s a success that we struck Hamas so exhausting, that this was a brutal hit in opposition to them, that Hamas now inform us that they’re ‘out of enterprise’ within the north,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari mentioned. However he mentioned it was a tragedy that Israeli troopers have been “compelled” to destroy the hospital buildings.
“We had no alternative however to battle again,” mentioned the navy particular forces commander.
Because the journalists seemed out on the destruction, one in every of Hagari’s officers mentioned, “That is what they made us do.”
For the reason that starting of the raid, the IDF mentioned it has detained 900 suspected Hamas fighters and that 540 have been despatched to Israel.
What number of Palestinians fighters have been killed over two weeks of preventing? The IDF didn’t present a precise determine. Hagari mentioned 40 have been killed. The commando chief mentioned “a couple of dozens.”
No demise toll has been offered but by Palestinian authorities, who gained entry to the location once more on Monday because the Israelis withdrew. Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Protection, mentioned emergency staff entered the compound at daybreak.
“The scene right here is likely one of the ugliest we now have seen since October 7,” he mentioned. “The hospital has turn into utterly unfit to be a medical heart. The scenario is tragic in each sense of the phrase.”
In the course of the offensive, the IDF mentioned it killed Faiq al-Mabhouh, whom Israel referred to as a commander within the Hamas inner safety forces. Hamas mentioned he was a police commander charged with coordinating and defending support deliveries.
“They contemplate that everybody who works with the federal government in Gaza is a Hamas activist and could be killed or arrested, even medical doctors, nurses, journalists and civilian police,” mentioned Naim, the Hamas official.
The IDF mentioned it additionally “eradicated” a senior Hamas official named Ra’advert Tabath, whom they described as a pacesetter of the group’s provide traces.
IDF officers have described the raid at al-Shifa as a mannequin for future motion in Gaza: intense however centered strikes by commandos. One query, although, is why such a big and harmful operation was required.
The navy claimed in late December it was near establishing “full operational management” of northern Gaza. Extra not too long ago, it mentioned it had “dismantled” Hamas’s battalions within the north. It was solely pure, the particular forces commander mentioned, that Hamas fighters would regroup round al-Shifa.
Now, he mentioned, there was no hospital left for them to return to.
The journalists piled again in armored personnel carriers for the journey again to Israel. We stopped, with out warning, alongside the best way. The troopers instructed us that they had come throughout a household of 4 Palestinians: a mom and father and two kids. We couldn’t see them.
The troopers mentioned the household have been in an space the place they weren’t allowed to be. They have been provided water and a chocolate bar after which detained, we have been instructed; the daddy can be intently questioned. Hagari, the navy spokesman, instructed us it was the very best plan of action.
Had the household proceeded in a no-go zone, he mentioned, the IDF troopers “may have shot them.”
Miriam Berger in Jerusalem, Hajar Harb in London and Hazem Balousha in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
