At Gunpoint, Israel Expels Patients, Doctors From Al-Shifa Hospital

Israeli forces ordered doctors, patients and displaced people at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital to evacuate the medical compound, giving them an hour to do so and forcing some to leave by gunpoint, Al-Jazeera reported on 18 November.

Israeli forces issued the demand to evacuate in “one hour” at around 9 am local time, but it was “impossible” to evacuate everyone, a doctor in Al-Shifa told Al-Jazeera.

Medical sources inside the facility said there are more than 7,000 people sheltering from Israeli bombing in the Al-Shifa complex, including 300 patients in critical condition.

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It also includes “at least 35 premature babies who already for eight days now have been out of their incubators because of the lack of oxygen and the lack of electricity,” Al-Jazeera’s correspondent in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said. Four babies died late on Friday and five are severely ill now, the correspondent added.

“There is no transportation means in Gaza City and the northern parts because of a lack of fuel. So people are expected to evacuate on foot. And doctors are telling us it’s impossible to evacuate with this many people on foot.” She added that doctors also did not want to abandon their patients.

“We were told to leave through al-Wehda road. Dozens of dead bodies are scattered on the road,” Omar Zaqout, the hospital’s supervisor, said. “Many homeless people who cannot walk are left out in the open.”

“Many of the patients were put on wheelchairs or rolling beds. Family members were forced to carry their wounded children or parents themselves … These are horrible, unprecedented scenes,” explained Munir al-Barsh, a doctor at the hospital.

The hospital has also been without food, water, electricity and oxygen for at least a week, while Israeli troops and tanks raided the facility over the last couple of days. Some 37 patients have died as the hospital’s ability to operate has collapsed.

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Israel claimed Hamas has a command center underneath the hospital and released video footage claiming to show weapons its troops found in various rooms. It also released footage claiming to show its troops unloading boxes full of medical supplies.

However, a BBC analysis of the footage clearly showed Israeli forces themselves brought the weapons into the hospital in the boxes of medical supplies in an effort to fabricate claims that Hamas was active there.

Before raiding the hospital, Israel also claimed that captives taken by Hamas on 7 October were being held there, and that a major Hamas “command center” was present below the hospital. But Israel could provide no evidence for either claim after taking control of the hospital.

The Palestinian Authority, released a statement in response to the evacuations saying, “The evacuation of al-Shifa deepens the humanitarian and environmental catastrophe Gaza faces.” Israel’s actions represent “another hideous facet of the crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by the occupation forces against Palestinians,” the statement said.