DUBAI AND GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — For two weeks starting in March, Israeli special forces laid siege to Al Shifa, once the largest and most advanced medical facility in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said the targets were militants who had regrouped there and were using the compound for shelter and internet access. Hamas hid behind the wounded and claimed that no civilians were killed in the attack. An Israeli statement said this was a precise operation and a model for future military operations in Gaza.
In the early morning hours of Monday, April 1, Israeli forces withdrew under cover of darkness, ending the siege. It was then that Palestinians got their first glimpse of the aftermath.
Photos and survivor testimonies collected by NPR in Gaza City reveal fighting that destroyed nearly every corner of al-Shifa and surrounding neighborhoods and homes. It is now a pile of twisted metal, debris, and ashes from an arson fire.
Bodies lay decomposing in the hospital's dirt courtyard, which was loaded with unexploded ordnance. Some were shot and left to die in hallways, others were seriously injured and crushed by tanks outside the gates, and others rotted in side streets and buildings.
There is currently no definitive death toll, nor is it clear how many of the dead are believed to be civilians or combatants.
A woman's screams echoed through the courtyard as another body was discovered on Monday.
“I've had enough! I've had enough, oh my god!” she cried.
A dead body outside Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on April 1, 2024.
NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
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NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
A dead body outside Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on April 1, 2024.
NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
Satellite images by Maxar Technologies are before-and-after satellite images showing the devastation of Al Shifa and its surrounding streets due to war.
Israelis praise this operation as a model
Israel said the operation targeted Hamas, the organization that launched deadly attacks against Israel on October 7 and sparked the war. The Associated Press reported that Hamas released footage of militants preparing shells it said were aimed at Israeli forces inside the hospital grounds.
Israeli army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Helj Halevi, who visited al-Shifa on two separate occasions during the attack, said part of the aim was to put pressure on negotiations with Hamas for a temporary cease-fire. He praised the strategy.
Israel said its forces found numerous weapons inside the hospital during the raid and killed and arrested hundreds of militants.
“We entered the area with surgical units and special operations and eliminated more than 200 terrorists. More than 900 terrorists were arrested without a single civilian casualty,” Israeli government spokesman Avi Heyman said. I did,” he said.
Monday, November 26, 2023 and April 1, 2024, Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza City.
Omar El-Katta/AFP via Getty Images. NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
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Omar El-Katta/AFP via Getty Images. NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
He added that the attack would be studied at top military academies such as West Point in the US and Sandhurst in the UK as the “gold standard of urban warfare”.
Palestinians dispute Israel's narrative of events
Dr. Marwan Abu Saada, acting director of Al Shifa Hospital, said three of his colleagues had died during the siege, but did not provide further details on the circumstances.
Hours after Israeli forces ended the siege, Abu Saada told reporters in the hospital courtyard of the destroyed medical complex, alongside other Palestinian doctors in white coats, that those who died were He said they included the chief engineer of the maintenance department, the head of the pharmaceutical department, and reconstruction medical workers. The surgeon was murdered along with his mother.
He and other hospital staff buried them all on Monday, he said.
He also named seven doctors who were detained by Israeli forces during the attack or are still being held after the previous attack in November, including several intensive care doctors and general surgeons. It was
The World Health Organization said 21 patients died in hospitals during Israel's recent 14-day siege and more than 100 patients were trapped without enough food or water. in poor conditions. According to the WHO, the seriously injured children endured the attack alone, without parents or caretakers.
After the attack, the emaciated-looking patients were carried on stretchers and taken to other small, partially functioning hospitals in northern Gaza.
Palestinians carry patients out of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday, April 1, 2024.
NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
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Palestinians carry patients out of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday, April 1, 2024.
NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
Emad Jibreel, one of the patients besieged inside al-Shifa, told NPR that Israeli forces forced them to move to other rooms in the hospital, sometimes locking them in rooms with no windows or ventilation. Told.
“I went about eight days without changing the bandage on my leg,” Jibril said. “We got infected twice, and the doctors and nurses couldn't take care of us because they said they didn't have gloves or gauze.”
The area around Al Shifa is destroyed as people mourn the lives and homes lost.
The attack focused not only on the hospital, but also on the surrounding streets where heavy fighting took place. Photos taken by NPR show the entire building reduced to rubble.
As Israeli forces entered al-Shifa in the early hours of March 18 with heavy gunfire and tanks, neighbors said other Israeli forces went door-to-door and carried out stunts as they rounded up people for questioning. He reportedly threw grenades into houses.
Nariman Kanita told NPR that he woke up a few hours after evening Ramadan prayers to the sound of heavy gunfire and artillery fire. She said Israeli forces entered her apartment as if they were fighting insurgents, but not the home of her family, where her children were.
“When they attacked and entered the building, there were 12 and 13-year-old children sleeping in the room. They were shouting baba, baba (daddy, daddy),” she said. She said: “I saw a person bleeding, with internal injuries, not from bullets. He had a hole more than 20 centimeters wide.” [8 inches] in him. “
It is unclear how the boy was injured. Residents said Israeli forces used stun grenades when banging on doors and used artillery, air strikes and heavy gunfire throughout the operation.
She said the boy bled for hours before Israeli forces allowed him to escape from the building, but instead the boy's mother had to watch over him as he bled profusely for some time. I don't know if Kanita survived or not.
Hours later, the Israeli military ordered the women and children to follow strict evacuation routes. She wasn't allowed to bring anything with her except her cell phone and identification, she said. The men were dressed in their underwear.
Other Palestinians told NPR similar stories. When the siege was over, Canita returned home. He was reduced to rubble.
“There are no suitable houses to live in. Where should we go, everyone?” she said. “While you are preparing Eid clothes and Eid cookies, we are preparing ways to retrieve the dead from the shrouds and basements of houses. Enough is enough,” he said. she said, explaining that it was coming.
April 1, 2024, in the affected area around Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
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NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
April 1, 2024, in the affected area around Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
NPR's Omar El-Kattaa
Journalist Bayan Abusultan lives near Al Shifa Hospital. She posted a reel on Instagram showing some of her moments of survival during the attack, including praying over the bodies of her brother and another person wrapped in white cloth. She does not say how he died, only that he was killed by Israeli forces.
Other scenes show people she describes as neighbors injured and bleeding with nowhere to seek treatment. She also shows a fire that broke out in an apartment in the building next to hers. Many homes were burnt during the raid in western Gaza City.
NPR was unable to immediately contact Abu Sultan to learn more about her life and the circumstances of her brother's death.
Gaza's largest hospital completely collapses
The raid was the second major assault on al-Shifa since the war began about six months ago, and proved to be the most decisive.
“Al-Shifa Medical Complex will permanently cease services,” Abu Saada, acting chairman, told reporters.
He said the hospital once had a capacity of about 800 beds. More than 250,000 people visit the emergency room each year. The hospital once performed more than 17,000 surgeries a year.
It is the lighthouse of Gaza, where the best medical students train, where visiting doctors perform surgeries and assist in past conflicts, and where journalists flock to report on the casualties and human suffering of the war with Israel. , he said.
Abu Saada said the hospital could no longer accept patients. There is no place to perform surgeries, clinical tests or dialysis because everything has been destroyed or burned, he said. He called for the immediate establishment of a field hospital in Gaza City.
Only 12 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are partially functional due to war and Israeli raids. These hospitals lack adequate supplies, including basic anesthesia, bed space, and equipment.
The World Health Organization has asked Israeli authorities multiple times this week to facilitate a visit to al-Shifa to speak to officials and see what can be salvaged after the attack, but has so far been refused or thwarted. It was announced that there was.
Omar El Qattaa reported from Gaza City. Aya Batrawi reported from Dubai. Anas Baba contributed to this article from Rafah, Gaza Strip.
