A World Health Organization team that inspected Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday described it as a “death zone.”
Israeli forces ordered doctors, patients and displaced people at Al-Shifa Hospital to evacuate the medical compound, forcing some to leave by gunpoint.
Doctors said to Al Jazeera that the facility, which has been under siege by Israeli troops for several days, was now largely deserted hours after soldiers ordered people to leave on Saturday.
Mohammed Zaqout, director general of hospitals in Gaza, said the Israeli army called the hospital management at 8am [05:00 GMT] and told them to evacuate the complex, the largest hospital in Gaza, within an hour.
They were directed to exit along a route where “charred bodies” were strewn across the street, he added.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the government media office in Gaza, said the Israeli army forced out more than 500 wounded people and patients at gunpoint.
“Al-Shifa Hospital has turned into a detention camp, an interrogation centre, a military barracks and mass grave altogether,” he said.
More than 7,000 people, including patients in critical condition and newborn babies fighting for their lives, were sheltered inside Al-Shifa, Al Jazeera reported.
At least 12,300 Palestinians, including over 5,000 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the government media office said on Saturday.
