TEHRAN-Israel’s two-week raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital has left a trail of deaths and destruction throwing a spotlight on the heinous crimes committed by the regime’s forces.

The Israeli military launched the raid on Gaza’s largest hospital, in the northern Gaza City, on March 18. But the regime withdrew its forces from the medical facility on Monday. 

“Troops have completed precise operational activity in the area of the Shifa Hospital and exited the area,” the Israeli military said.

Army officials claimed scores of resistance fighters including Hamas members have been killed during the 14-day siege and hundreds of others have been arrested.     

They also claimed that the storming of the hospital had been conducted “while preventing harm to civilians, patients and medical teams”.

However, footage on social media and comments made by witnesses and Palestinian authorities dispute the regime’s claims. 

Video footage circulating online have shown heavily damaged and charred buildings as well as mounds of dirt churned up by bulldozers and patients on stretchers in darkened corridors.

A spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense described the situation at the al-Shifa Hospital “very bad”.

Mahmoud Bassal added that the facility is “completely destroyed and burned down. Many of its buildings are totally destroyed or charred…Injured and dead bodies fill the hospital grounds and there are bodies buried in the hospital yards.”

‘Total destruction’

A Palestinian resident has described a scene of “total destruction” around the site of the hospital after the Israeli troops retreated.   

Mohammed Mahdi told the Associated Press that several buildings had been burned down and that he had counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard.
Another resident told the AP that there were still patients, medical workers and displaced people sheltering inside the al-Shifa Hospital. Yahia Abu Auf said Israeli bulldozers had

plowed over a makeshift cemetery in the hospital’s courtyard.

“The situation is indescribable. The occupation destroyed all sense of life here,” he added. 

‘Horror movie’

A journalist working for CNN also likened the scene at the al-Shifa Hospital following Israel’s pullout to “a horror movie.”

“We found entire families dead and their bodies are decomposed in houses around the hospital,” CNN journalist Khader Al Za’anoun says. “Bulldozers crushed bodies of people everywhere around and in the yard of the hospital,” Khader Al Za’anoun said. 

Al Za’anoun added that after the withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the hospital people began arriving at the destroyed complex to search for missing family members

“We found entire families dead and their bodies are decomposed in houses around the hospital,” he said, according to CNN. 

‘Civilians executed’

A representative for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has also touched upon the crimes committed by Israelis at the hospital. 

“According to eyewitness accounts and official reports, many of the civilians were executed. They were killed by the Israeli occupation forces including medical staff, doctors and nurses, they were purposefully executed by the Israeli soldiers,” Raed al-Nims told Al Jazeera. 

Citing medical sources as saying, Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported that hundreds of bodies of slain civilians were found at the al-Shifa Medical Complex.

The sources said Israeli soldiers destroyed the temporary cemetery that citizens had established at the site. They said the regime’s troops took out the bodies from underground and dumped them in different areas of the hospital.

The Gaza media office said Israeli forces killed 400 Palestinians around the al-Shifa Hospital, including a female doctor and her son, also a doctor, and put the medical facility out of function. 

"The occupation destroyed and burnt all buildings inside Al Shifa Medical Complex. They bulldozed the courtyards, burying dozens of bodies of martyrs in the rubble, turning the place into a mass graveyard," said Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the media office.

"This is a crime against humanity," he added. 

Hamas demands ICC probe

Hamas has called on the International Criminal Court and the United Nations to condemn and investigate the Israeli atrocities at the al-Shifa Hospital.

The resistance movement said it holds the U.S. administration and President Biden personally fully responsible for the crimes, massacres and systematic destruction of civilian lives in the Gaza Strip.

Israel raided the al-Shifa Hospital under the pretext of targeting Hamas fighters. The regime claims that the resistance movement uses the facility as a base without providing any evidence to substantiate its allegation. 

The Israeli military made similar claims to justify the previous deadly raid on the hospital in November last year. Throughout Israel’s brutal onslaught on Gaza that broke out on October 7, the regime’s army has besieged several hospitals in the Palestinian territory. 

Hamas has denied operating from al-Shifa or other health facilities. The resistance movement has dismissed Israel’s claims, calling them “lies and cheap propaganda”.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says about 3,000 people were inside the Al-Shifa Hospital when Israel launched its raid two weeks ago.  The ministry says those attempting to leave were being targeted by snipers and fire from helicopters.

International law has stipulated that targeting hospitals in wartime is prohibited. Attacking a protected hospital is also a war crime that can be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court.  Despite that, Israel has targeted patients and medical staff in Gaza hospitals with impunity over the past months. 

The Israeli atrocities at the al-Shifa Hospital are just the tip of the iceberg. 

The regime has killed nearly 33,000 Palestinians since launching war on Gaza nearly six months ago. More than 75,000 Palestinians have also been wounded in the Israeli attacks. 

The war has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and driven a third of its residents to the brink of famine. 

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on keeping up the Gaza offensive. He has vowed to launch a ground incursion into  the southern city of Rafah. Some 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population — have sought refuge in Rafah.

Concerns are growing that an anticipated ground offensive in Rafah would unfold another act of genocide in the Palestinian territory.

The U.S., which is Israel’s main supporter, has not only refused to cut military aid to Tel Aviv but it has recently authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to the regime. 

Washington’s continued military support for Israel amounts to carte blanche that emboldens the Netanyahu regime to perpetrate massacres after massacres in Gaza.