Gaza Genocideupdated 1h ago2 min read
Archive photo · 23 February 2025Israeli Forces Withdraw From Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital After Two-Week Raid Leaves It In Ruins
“The Israeli army blew up hospital buildings by setting up booby traps”
“Wards were attacked because Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were using them as a base”
Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for layout
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
IDF withdrew from Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital after a two-week raid. Hospital largely destroyed, with surgery, maternity, and emergency wards heavily damaged.
Shifa left in ruins
Israel’s forces withdrew from Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital after a two-week raid that left most of the major medical complex in ruins. An Anadolu Ajansı hospital official said, “Al-Shifa Hospital is completely demolished, with all hospital facilities burnt down,” after the Israeli army withdrew from the site.
The BBC reported that Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said the medical complex was now “completely out of service,” after dozens of bodies were found in and around the compound. The Anadolu Ajansı account said hospital head of the Department of Surgery Marwan Abu Sada told Anadolu that “The Israeli army blew up hospital buildings by setting up booby traps, burned oxygen stations and electric generators, and set fire to all sections of the hospital.”
Patients, deaths, and claims
The World Health Organization said some 21 patients had died during the fighting, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel to “facilitate a safe humanitarian corridor and a better deconfliction system for WHO and partners to support patient transfers.” The BBC said Dr Amira al-Safady told the BBC’s Gaza Lifeline radio that about 16 people in the intensive care unit died after being moved, because “she and other doctors no longer had the equipment to treat them.”
Israel said it had killed 200 “terrorists,” detained over 500 more, and found weapons and intelligence “throughout the hospital,” while the BBC said the IDF accused Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives of using wards as a base. The Health Policy Watch account said Israel re-entered Shifa in a surprise attack early Monday morning, 18 March, after Israel’s first raid in November, and it said Israel detained 900 more people, including 500 it said were affiliated with Hamas or its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Aftermath and wider stakes
After Israel withdrew, the BBC said Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reported dozens of bodies had been found and locals said nearby areas were razed, while the IDF said it had taken “special efforts not to harm any patients, any medical staff, or any civilians in the area.”
“Everything has been destroyed or burnt. The hospital has been turned into a cemetery.”
The Le Monde account quoted Kayed Hamad saying, “Everything has been destroyed or burnt. The hospital has been turned into a cemetery. We simply have to build a new one,” after Israeli forces laid siege to the site on March 18.
The Health Policy Watch account said WAFA reported “hundreds of bodies of slain civilians” were strewn on the hospital grounds, and it said the hospital’s few remaining patients were being moved to Al Ahli Hospital about two kilometres to the south-east.
The BBC said the IDF raided al-Shifa because Hamas had regrouped there, and it described the two-week operation as involving intense fighting and Israeli air strikes in nearby buildings and the surrounding area.
