The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented Oct 7 attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The militants also took about 250 hostages. After an earlier truce and hostage release deal, Israel says about 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aiming to destroy Hamas, has killed at least 32,552 people, most of them women and children, according to the latest toll issued Thursday by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israel has launched raids on and near several Gaza hospitals since the war began, saying fighters have used them as bases. Palestinian militants deny such accusations.
Troops began raiding Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City early last week, and on Wednesday night carried out an air strike “while avoiding harm to civilians, patients and medical teams,” the army said on Thursday.
It said the air strike came after militants fired at troops “from within and outside” the hospital’s emergency ward over recent days.
An earlier Israeli raid on Al-Shifa last November sparked an international outcry.
ARMY SAYS HUNDREDS KILLED
The UN has reported “intensive exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and armed Palestinians”. It cited the health ministry as saying the army has confined Al-Shifa medical staff and patients to one building, not allowing them to leave.
Israel’s army said troops had evacuated civilians, patients and staff “to alternative medical facilities” it set up.
The army says it has killed around 200 militants in the Al-Shifa area since its operation began, a toll AFP could not independently verify.
Dozens more have been killed in the al-Amal area of Khan Yunis, the embattled southern city just north of Rafah, the army said.
Al-Amal hospital “has ceased to function completely”, the Palestine Red Crescent said earlier this week, following the evacuation of civilians from the medical centre.
Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have also massed around another Khan Yunis facility, Nasser Hospital, the health ministry said, adding that shots were fired but no raid had begun.
Israel denies it is blocking aid trucks but only around 150 vehicles a day are entering the Gaza Strip, compared with at least 500 before the war, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
With limited ground access, several nations have begun aid airdrops, and a sea corridor from Cyprus has delivered its first cargo of food.
