PNN – In the shadow of the silence of the international community, the soldiers of the Zionist regime have turned the Shefa hospital into a hell with their criminal and barbaric actions.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, the war of the Zionist regime against Gaza has passed its 170th day while the crimes of the occupiers continue in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah.
A few days ago, the Zionist regime started a new attack on Shefa hospital and committed horrible killings. Eyewitnesses report executions in the field, arrests and displacement of refugees and other inhumane actions against Palestinians in Shefa hospital.
Last November, the Zionist army attacked this hospital and claimed that this hospital is the command center of Hamas and the Qassam battalions of its military branch. A claim that Tel Aviv could not prove.
Shafa hospital from establishment to destruction
The State Hospital Assembly affiliated to the Palestinian Ministry of Health is the largest hospital in Gaza, consisting of three hospitals with three separate buildings. This hospital complex was established in 1946 at the location of the British army barracks, and with the occupation of Gaza, this complex was occupied by the Zionist regime after 1967, and its status continued until the Palestinian Authority took over this hospital after the Oslo Accords.
During Egypt’s management of the Gaza Strip before 1967 and also in the 1980s, this hospital was expanded, and this process continued during the rule of the Palestinian Authority over Gaza until the Hamas government took control of Gaza in 2007.
Al-Shifa Hospital is located at a crossroads in the central western region of Gaza City and its area is 45 thousand square meters.
The complex consists of three hospitals, which include surgery, internal medicine and obstetrics hospitals (which includes a nursery for premature babies), as well as emergency, intensive care, radiology and blood bank departments.
With the start of the Zionist regime’s attack on the Gaza Strip on October 7, this hospital accepted all serious medical cases from the Gaza Strip and used twice its capacity to receive patients undergoing treatment in complex conditions, power outages and severe shortages of fuel and medicine.
A few days after the start of the war, Al-Shifa Hospital became a center for sheltering displaced persons and about 40,000 people sought refuge in this complex and settled in its premises and pitched tents. But with the beginning of the bombardment of the hospital and the ambulances inside it, their number decreased to less than half of this figure.
Shocking reports of the crimes of the occupiers
The European Mediterranean Human Rights Watch, a human rights center, has documented shocking reports from Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip regarding crimes against Palestinians, including executions.
This human rights center emphasized: Israeli forces have set fire to many houses while their residents were inside these houses and prevented people from approaching to remove the residents from these houses or put out the fire. We have recorded many cases of the Israeli army burning dozens of residential houses in the west of Gaza City and in the suburbs of Shefa Medical Complex.
Al-Jazeera network revealed the horrible crime of the invaders in the Shefa hospital and reported that the Zionist soldiers ran over the wounded in the hospital with a tank.
Hamas criticizes global silence
By issuing a statement, Hamas reacted to the continuing crimes of the Zionist regime in the Shafa medical complex and its surroundings.
It is stated in this statement: Hamas strongly deplores the international silence regarding the human disaster that the fascist war machine of the occupiers has wrought in Shefa Hospital and its surroundings.
Hamas stated: At the same time, we emphasize that these heinous crimes will not create a disturbance in the determination of our nation and its stability, as well as adherence to the right to freedom and self-determination.
The narration of eyewitnesses
Residents of the areas around Shefa hospital in the west of Gaza city announced that the Zionist army attacked this hospital, arrested men in large numbers and moved women and children to the south of Gaza and created a hell in this area.
Residents of Al-Rimal and Al-Nasr areas have spoken about the bodies scattered in the streets. They pointed to widespread arrests and emphasized that women are under heavy artillery and air attacks and fierce clashes are going on between resistance fighters and Zionist soldiers in this area.
Eyewitnesses also spoke of tens of tanks and armored vehicles of the occupiers in the area and reminded that notices were published and residents were asked to go south.
59-year-old Mohammad, one of the residents of the camp adjacent to this medical complex, reported the explosion of houses near this hospital and added: Tanks are stationed at the entrance of the hospital and the houses adjacent to the hospital have been set on fire.
According to him, Zionist soldiers are searching house to house in Al-Rimal and Al-Shati area and they take all the men, even the children. Everyone is in fear of execution and imprisonment.
Mahmoud Abu Omra, 50 years old, also said: The invaders raid the houses and force all men over the age of 16 to take off their clothes and beat them with the butt of a gun and then take them to the school next to the hospital for questioning.
According to these reports, the Zionist soldiers harassed the residents of the houses around the Al-Shifa hospital, and in an insulting act, they took off the clothes of Palestinian youths and men and took them blindfolded to unknown areas.
The occupiers gathered 150 sick and injured people and their companions in a room and interrogated them continuously.
These reports emphasize that the patients were kept as superhuman by the occupiers, the sick and injured were kept on the ground in a place without medical services, and their wounds became infected. The occupiers interrogate the detainees with their clothes off.
These reports emphasize that the situation in this hospital is at the level of a war crime. In Al-Rashid Street, there are injured people who died because they were forced to leave. The bodies of the martyrs are on the ground and the occupiers are shooting at people.
What is the aim of the invaders to attack the hospital?
The Zionist regime, which has not yet been able to achieve its goals in the Gaza war, is seeking to achieve an imaginary victory for itself.
Therefore, the Zionist occupation pretends that they have eliminated the Palestinian fighters, and in addition, they are implementing their evil goal, which they have been pursuing since the beginning of the war, i.e. evicting the Palestinians from Gaza.