IDF and Shin Bet fighters overnight Monday attacked terrorists who had taken over Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. On Monday morning, the fighters spotted shots being fired at them from several buildings in the hospital, exchanged fire with them, and hit several terrorists.
The Army published a recording of a conversation between the head of the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Directorate and the Director General of the Hamas Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip, based on which the army concluded that Hamas has resumed its activities in Shifa.
The IDF Spokesperson’s office reported on Monday, “We see that the terrorist organization Hamas continues its military activity inside the hospitals. We are ready to provide any humanitarian assistance that may be required. Our request is simple, an immediate cessation of all terrorist activity in the hospitals.”
The IDF returned to Shifa four months after the previous raid on the Strip’s largest medical compound in the first weeks of the war. On November 24, IDF forces left the hospital, after destroying an underground complex, as part of the assessments and redeployment of the forces in the Strip, which complemented the deal for the release of hostages. Because of its efforts to allow a maximum number of reservists to return to their everyday lives, for the sake of the country’s economy, the IDF has been unable to maintain its hold on areas where much blood was shed to get rid of the terrorists. But Gaza abhors a vacuum, and now the terrorists are back.
Al Quds reported Monday morning that several Gaza Arabs were killed during the Israeli storming of Al-Shifa. According to Hamas’s Health Ministry, medical teams are unable to save the injured due to the intensity of the IDF fire targeting anyone who approaches the buildings’ windows. The Ministry also confirmed that a fire broke out at the hospital gate, causing suffocation.
Meanwhile, local sources told Al Quds that IDF forces arrested dozens of individuals inside the Shifa complex, which according to Haaretz came to at least 80. In Nuseirat, medical sources reported that 9 were killed and several others were injured after IDF warplanes bombed a house in the camp.
Violent clashes are taking place in the vicinity of the hospital between Hamas terrorists and IDF fighters who entered suddenly under heavy fire cover and besieged the hospital.
IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said Hamas officials were operating from inside the compound. “Army forces began a limited operation in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex based on intelligence information indicating the presence of Hamas officials inside it,” Hagari said. He described “senior leaders in Hamas” who were working from within the complex to attack Israel. But according to Haaretz, the IDF did not find Hamas seniors there, nor any Israeli hostages.
