Thousands ‘in danger of death’ as Israeli forces ransack Gaza hospital

Thousands of women, children, sick and wounded are in danger of death” as Israeli troops badly ransack Gaza Al-Shifa Hospital in an attempt to find an elusive Hamas command and control center it has long claimed is located there.

Israeli officials said Hamas held some of the 240 hostages taken by gunmen on Oct. 7 in the hospital complex. The body of a woman hostage was recovered by troops in a building near Al Shifa on Thursday, the army said.

Military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were also found in the building, it said.

Human Rights Watch said hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law.

“Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises,” the watchdog’s U.N. Director Louis Charbonneau said.

Reuters reported that Israeli soldiers have found a tunnel shaft used by Hamas militants at Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, while the U.N. voiced concern no aid would be delivered to Palestinians on Friday via the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

The army released a video it said showed a tunnel entrance in an outdoor area of Al Shifa. The video, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a deep hole in the ground, littered with and surrounded by concrete and wood rubble and sand. It appeared the area had been excavated; a bulldozer appeared in the background.

The army said its troops also found a vehicle in the hospital containing a large number of weapons.

Hamas said in a statement late on Thursday that claims by the Pentagon and U.S. State Department that the group uses Al Shifa for military purposes “is a repetition of a blatantly false narrative, demonstrated by the weak and ridiculous performances of the occupation army spokesman.”

Moreover, at around 02:25 am (0025 GMT), the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several positions in the vicinity of Damascus,” the Syrian state news agency, SANA, reported, citing a military source.

The military source did not provide details on the targets and said that the strikes caused “material damage”, according to the report, which added that Syria’s air defense intercepted some of the Israeli missiles.

AFP news agency quoted the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group as saying that the strikes targeted sites belonging to the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Ambulances rushed to the scene, the war monitor added.

Israel has targeted Syria several times in the past weeks as regional tensions simmer over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.