After 14 days, Israel turned Al-Shifa Hospital into 'death complex,' say eyewitnesses

By Anadolu staff

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) — The Israeli army committed "horrific massacres" in the course of its devastating raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City, according to witnesses.

Three Palestinian witnesses who were inside the hospital during the two-week incursion on the hospital and its surrounding area spoke to Anadolu.

The Israeli army withdrew from the hospital early Monday after a 14-day raid, leaving behind dozens of people dead and a trail of massive destruction.

Nurse Loay Abu Asi was working inside Al-Shifa Hospital's surgery building when the Israeli army raided the hospital at dawn on March 18.

"Before storming the hospital, a room inside the surgery building was hit, leaving some displaced people killed, along with some medical staff injured. After that, the gate's hospital was stormed and all the hospital's buildings were under the Israeli forces' blockade," Loay recounted.

He said that Israeli forces then began warning people inside through loudspeakers not to move or stand in front of the windows.

"We stayed for 24 hours inside the building without moving, while the Israeli bullets were hitting the building, and communications and electricity were cut off and there was no water or food," Loay added.

The next day, Israeli forces ordered people inside the surgery building to leave, arrested dozens, and telling others to evacuate towards southern the Gaza Strip.

They then ordered medical staff to exit the building, he said, adding: "They arrested a number of doctors, forced them to take off their clothes and tortured them inside the hospital's yard."

"They were calling us by name one by one, interrogating us while being stripped of our clothes," Loay said.

Loay said he was also arrested for 12 hours, interrogated and beaten before being released. After that, he was locked along with other medical staff and patients inside another building of the hospital for five days with no food, water, or medicine.

The nurse said some of the patients' wounds had rotted as they could receive no medical care.

Also speaking on his experiences inside the hospital during the raid, Hasan Al-Mansi, an injured patient, said he was interrogated by Israeli forces and forced to move from one building to another under heavy fire.

"Every person must pass in front of a camera for the Israeli army, then taken into interrogation," Al-Mansi said, adding that a number of patients, medical staff and displaced people were arrested by the Israeli forces.

Meanwhile, Abdel-Fattah al-Zaharneh a local resident living near the hospital, told Anadolu that he saw people being killed by Israeli forces, with their corpses laid down on the surrounding streets while Israeli bulldozers were ran them over.

"There was no water, no food. Here there was death and destruction. We were forced to drink unusable water," al-Zaharneh said.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed some 1,200 people.

At least 32,845 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 75,400 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which on Thursday asked Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar