Israel vows to continue raid on Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital until last "terrorist" detained

JERUSALEM, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Chief of Israeli army's Southern Command Yaron Finkelman on Saturday said the raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza would end "only when the last terrorist is in the army's hands -- alive or dead."

Finkelman made the remarks during a situation assessment with other Israeli military officials at the hospital, once Gaza's largest medical facility and now one of the few hospitals still functioning in the enclave. The hospital has also served as a shelter for displaced Palestinians since the Gaza conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israeli forces launched the raid on Monday before dawn with tanks and airstrikes. According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, the forces also bombed and burned residential buildings surrounding the medical complex.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that more than 170 people have so far been killed in the hospital area and 800 others have been arrested.

The IDF affirmed that all the fatalities were militants, a claim denied by the Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry, who accused Israeli troops of detaining displaced people, medical staff, and patients, subjecting them to abuse, and coercing them to move south at gunpoint.

The army reiterated in a statement on Saturday that "senior officials" with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian armed group, hid in the hospital, adding that "numerous weapons and terror infrastructure" have been located.

Video footage circulating on social media showed smoke rising above the medical complex, while another video clip depicted half a dozen individuals clad only in underwear leaving the hospital.

Amid a lack of food, water and medical care, at least five injured Palestinians trapped at Al-Shifa have died, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Late on Friday, Director-General of World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on social media platform X that 50 health workers and 143 patients had been kept in one building of the hospital since the second day of the raid, with "extremely limited food, water and only one nonfunctional toilet."

No basic medical supplies are available. "Patients are in critical condition, many lying on the floor ... Patients have no companions or caretakers," the WHO chief said, describing the conditions as "utterly inhumane" and urging "an immediate end to the siege" and "safe access to ensure patients get the care they need."

In response to the criticism, a spokesman from the office of Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, an Israeli governmental body, stated Saturday that Israeli forces had allowed aid to enter "a designated compound within the hospital," where sick and wounded patients were evacuated to ensure their safety.