It was reported that dozens of Palestinians, including children and women, were killed and wounded in the Israeli attacks on Shifa Hospital and different areas in the Gaza Strip.
According to the official Palestinian WAFA agency, based on local sources, Israel targeted several areas in the Gaza Strip, especially around Shifa Hospital and Deir Belah, Kuwait Junction, Rafah city and eastern parts of Khan Younis.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed and wounded as a result of the Israeli artillery and warplanes targeting the area around Shifa Hospital in the western part of the Gaza Strip, accompanied by intense fire from Israeli military vehicles and tanks.
Israeli forces used loudspeakers to demand that Palestinians evacuate Shifa Hospital immediately.
The Israeli raid on the hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, began early last week and a brigade of special forces and tanks quickly surrounded the hospital.
According to Israeli officials, 170 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants were killed, while the IDF claimed that 500 militants, including senior field commanders from both armed groups, were among the 800 detainees. Some of the Palestinians detained by Israel were released a few days later and taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the town of Deir Balah.
The Gaza government’s media office announced that Israeli soldiers “threatened hospital staff and displaced Palestinians with bombing and demolition of hospital buildings, torture, interrogation and killing”.
On 15 November 2023, the Israeli army raided Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, claiming the presence of tunnels and weapons caches, and failed to provide evidence to support its claims after the hospital was out of service and severely damaged.
On the other hand, Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on a house belonging to the Salman family in the town of Deir Balah in the central part of the Gaza Strip. Eighteen members of the Salman family were killed in the air strike.
Many people were also injured in the attack on the house of the Abu Amra family in the al-Hikir area of Deir Balah.
Israeli forces also targeted committees distributing humanitarian aid in Kuwait Junction.
Several people were killed and injured when Israeli warplanes targeted a house belonging to the Berhum family in the Yebna refugee camp in central Rafah.
Health officials at Kuwait Hospital said that the dead and wounded were brought to the hospital as a result of the Israeli bombardment of houses in the camp.
As a result of the Israeli bombardment of Deir Belah, the death toll rose to 10, while many people were reportedly trapped in the rubble.
More than 27 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed as a result of Israel’s targeting of 5 houses in the town of Rafah since yesterday morning.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kenani strongly condemned the ‘inhuman and horrific crimes’ committed by Israel against the medical staff, patients, wounded and displaced Palestinians at Shifa Hospital.
According to a written statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, “Shifa Hospital and its surroundings, patients, medical staff, Palestinian refugees, especially women and children, have been under a violent and inhumane siege by the Zionist regime’s terrorist army for a week. This regime has committed terrible crimes in the hospital,” Kenani said, adding that with these attacks, Israel has “added another shameful page to the black list of its crimes”.
Noting that there have been “shocking reports of torture, insults and murder” of Palestinian women detained at the hospital, Kenani said, “Urgent and decisive action by the international community is needed, including the establishment of an international fact-finding mission to uncover the extent of Zionist war crimes at Shifa Hospital.
The Iranian spokesman strongly condemned Israel’s violations of international law and human rights and called on the international community to fulfil its responsibility to support the Palestinian people and take effective and urgent measures to stop the attacks and prosecute the “perpetrators and supporters of the crimes committed”.
