Israeli forces announced on Monday their withdrawal from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza after a two-week raid, with Palestinians describing the extensive destruction left behind by the army and bodies scattered in the dirt of the complex.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the facility – Gaza City’s main hospital before the war – was used to harbour Hamas fighters. The army described the operation as one of the most successful of the nearly six-month conflict and cited the killing of scores of militants including senior operatives.
However, the UN health agency said several hospital patients had died and dozens were put at risk during the raid. Palestinians who fled the facility described days of heavy fighting, mass arrests and forced marches past dead people.
According to a statement by the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, published on X in the late hours of Sunday, at least 21 individuals died during the military operation with more than 100 patients still remaining in the compound, at least 28 in critical condition.
“Among the patients are four children, lacking necessary means of care – no diapers, urine bags, water to clean wounds,” Ghebreyesus wrote. “Many have infected wounds and are dehydrated. Since yesterday only one bottle of water remains for every 15 people.”
Video footage circulating online showed heavily damaged and charred buildings, mounds of dirt that had been churned up by bulldozers, and patients on stretchers in darkened corridors, the Associated Press reported.
R Adm Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said Hamas had established its main northern headquarters inside the hospital and blamed the Palestinian militants for the destruction, saying fighters had barricaded themselves inside the facility. Hagari denied that any civilians had been harmed by Israeli forces, and said the army had evacuated more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients and delivered food, water and medical supplies to the rest.
Hamas denies using the facility for military ends and accuses Israel of war crimes.
The conflict was triggered in October when Hamas killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack in southern Israel. The military offensive launched by Israel in the aftermath of the attack has so far killed an estimated 33,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities. A relentless bombardment has reduced swaths of the territory to rubble, displacing more than 80% of the population.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is grappling with one of the most serious threats yet to his coalition. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people across Israel joined the families of hostages to protest against the government and call for his removal.
Hamas abducted about 250 people. Israel believes about 130 of these remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead. The protesters in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Caesarea and other cities on Saturday, and at a further demonstration outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Sunday, demanded the release of those still held captive and labelled Netanyahu an “obstacle to the deal”, vowing to persist until he left power.
Netanyahu is entering the most precarious week for his coalition since the war began as a deadline imposed by the Israeli supreme court to end the exemption for ultra-Orthodox students from military conscription was reached on Monday. The issue divides the coalition between the rightwing religious and the secular parties who want to see conscription shared more equally among Jewish Israelis.
Israel has mandatory army service but for decades has made an exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews, also known as Haredi, who have been allowed to continue full-time Torah study and live on government stipends. But as Israel’s armed forces wage a near six-month war in Gaza in which 500 soldiers have been killed, legislators from the government and the opposition have voiced a stance that places the onus of heightened military service obligations on the Haredi community, rather than imposing additional duties on those already in service.
In a letter on Sunday, the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, urged the defence and education ministries that the “process of drafting members of the ultra-Orthodox community into the army must begin” and warned “against any attempt to continue funding yeshivahs [Jewish institutions for religious study] that harbour students who dodge their army service, against court orders”, the Times of Israel reported.
Naama Lazimi, a member of the Knesset for the centre-left Labor party, told the Guardian the row sparked by the ultra-Orthodox exemption law “can be a gamechanger”.
Should the government choose to revoke the exemption, it faces the potential of a walkout by the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers; on the other hand, maintaining the exemption could prompt the withdrawal of secular members. In either scenario, the unity of the coalition hangs precariously in the balance, given the looming threat of new elections with Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls.
AP and Reuters contributed to this report