“Enemy found nothing,” Hamas slams Israel’s Al-Shifa incursion

As the Israeli military continues its siege of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza for another day, Hamas representative in Lebanon, Ahmed Abdel Hadi in a statement said: 

“The enemy found nothing in Al-Shifa Hospital, and it has become clear that the allegation was nothing but a wild imagination. The criminal occupation which targets hospitals and displaces our people will fail. The occupation can’t eliminate the military force of the resistance in Gaza. The resistance is totally fine, and its command and control system is functioning in good health. The occupation is incapable of correctly assessing the situation and will eventually fall.” 

The reports reveal that the specialised surgery building has been completely damaged from the inside as a result of the raid. The hospital area is surrounded by tanks blocking all sorts of movement while both air strikes and ground strikes continue as a cover in tandem. A warehouse containing medicine and medical equipment was also destroyed in the attack. 

While the rampage of Israeli forces wreaked havoc on the largest and one of the only functioning hospitals in the Gaza Strip, witnesses also raised serious concerns over more than 200 people who were tortured, blindfolded and taken to unknown places. According to the witness accounts the troops assaulted and stripped civilians, and made them walk in lines to the hospital yard. 

Despite the heinous incursion being a failure in proving the allegations of a Hamas base in the hospital, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the move saying Israel will have to maintain control “as long as necessary”. The US President Joe Biden backed the former’s statement arguing that it is “not realistic” to expect a ceasefire reiterating the claim of Hamas’s presence at Al-Shifa Hospital without any supporting proof. 

On Wednesday, the Israeli Defence Forces in desperation published a video showing a few duffle bags containing Hamas uniforms, jackets and arms that they claimed to have found inside the hospital compound. Responding to the video, Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, termed the Israeli accusation false and said that the articles shown in the video could easily have been placed by the army itself.

Meanwhile, the Saudi foreign ministry strongly condemned the Israeli occupation forces’ storming of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza and the bombing in the surroundings of the Jordan Field Hospital.

“The Kingdom stresses the need to activate international accountability mechanisms regarding these ongoing violations and brutal and inhumane practices by the Israeli occupation forces, against children, women, civilians, health facilities and relief teams,” the ministry said on X.